Zelenskyy labels Putin “dumbass” for “high-tech duel” idea to target Kyiv with Oreshnik

On 19 December, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy harshly criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin for suggesting testing a new Russian ballistic missile on Kyiv, using multiple strong expressions in both English and Ukrainian.

At today’s annual televised press conference in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed Russia’s Oreshnik missile cannot be intercepted by air defenses and proposed testing it against Ukrainian capital’s defense systems.

During the European Council summit in Brussels after meeting with European leaders, Zelenskyy commented on Putin’s offer, calling him and his associates “vidmorozky“ – an informal Ukrainian word meaning “degenerates, psychos, lowlifes.”

Russia conducts its deliberate air attacks on residential areas and civilian infrastructure every day across Ukraine, including Kyiv. Since October 2022, it has systematically targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with extensive missile and drone assaults, aiming to disrupt civilian life, particularly during the winter months. Such attacks often cause civilian casualties and damage to power stations and residential neighborhoods. 

Politico says Zelenskyy also told reporters:

“I think Putin is very dangerous, he doesn’t care about human lives … I think he is crazy, really. He loves to kill.”

Later, an English-language post appeared on Zelenskyy’s X account, containing a subtitled video from the Moscow press conference, in which Putin offers “those in the West and the US” an “interesting” “technological experiment” in Kyiv involving Russia’s Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile and the Western air defense systems.

“People are dying, and he thinks it’s ‘interesting’ … Dumbass,” Zelenskyy commented in his post.

In the shared video, Putin said:

“Let’s say, some kind of a high-tech duel of the 21st century. Let them determine some facility to hit, say in Kyiv,  concentrate all their anti-air and anti-missile [means] there, and we will strike there with the Oreshnik and see what happens,” Putin said during the conference, adding: “We are ready for such an experiment. In any case, we don’t exclude it. We will conduct such an experiment, such a tech duel, and see what happens. It’s interesting.”

Zelenskyy’s English-language post was followed by its Ukrainian version. The Ukrainian translation contained the word “dovboyob,” which is much ruder than the English “dumbass” and is rather vulgar slang than just a colloquial term, being equivalent to the English “dumb f*ck.”

Ukrainian publication Liga contacted the presidential communications advisor Dmytro Lytvyn, and he confirmed to Liga that the translation was not made in error.

The head of Zelenskyy’s office, Andrii Yermak, shared another video from Putin’s press conference where the Russian leader couldn’t pronounce the word “vozrosli” (‘they increased’), captioning it as “Old, insane cretin.“

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