OREANDA-NEWS Vladimir Zelensky's office tried to justify his foul language in an interview with American journalist Lex Friedman by saying that it was not a speech from a high podium. This is how the use of obscene language by the Ukrainian leader was explained by the adviser to the head of his office, Sergey Leshchenko, on the air of the all-Ukrainian telethon, RIA Novosti reports.

"He uses whatever vocabulary he sees fit. In this case, he speaks the language of the people, the way Ukrainians think, that's what the president says. This is not a speech at the high rostrum of the European Council or the UN Security Council," he said.

Earlier, Zelensky reacted obscenely to a question about Russian President Vladimir Putin. He responded obscenely to the blogger about the role of Chechnya in modern Russia and the Kremlin's attitude towards the republic. In the same conversation, the President of Ukraine swore obscenely when discussing the Budapest Memorandum — "just a piece of paper that everyone was *** on."

Journalist Diana Panchenko called the president of Ukraine a goblin from the series of novels about the wizard Harry Potter by writer J. K. Rowling. She noted that Zelensky sees himself as Harry Potter, but he's just a greedy goblin from Gringotts Bank.