Interfax: Medvedev: it may be simplistic to see Ukraine protests as attack on Soviet-style policies

Dmitry Medvedev file photo

MOSCOW. Dec 16 (Interfax) – Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev argued on Friday that it might be simplistic to see current protests in Ukraine as an offensive against Soviet-style policies.

“You drew some comparisons and mentioned Ukraine. I’m not sure that all that is happening in Ukraine at the moment can be described as an attack on ‘Sovok,'” Medvedev said at a news conference in Moscow. Sovok, which means “dust pan”, is a pejorative slang term for Soviet-era practices.

Medvedev was commenting on a statement that many young people in Ukraine say the protests represent not anti-Russian sentiments but the refusal to go back to “Sovok.”

He also argued it was not right to use the word “Sovok.”

“And actually, this term, I have a right to speak about this because I lived in the Soviet era, I know the good and bad points of the Soviet system and I take a critical attitude towards them. But it was my country, I was born there and got my education there,” he said.

Maidan Square file photo

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