Russian Ambassador to Belarus Alexander Surikov has expressed his opinion about the problems of naming our country in Russian. Many Russian mass media keep using Belarus’ Soviet name – Byelorussia.
“I wouldn’t like to get into these linguistic arguments,” the diplomat told Belarus 1. “I only know that I am an ambassador in a sovereign state. According o the Constitution, the country’s name is Belarus.”
Alexander Surikov also commented on the rumours about the Russian language being oppressed in Belarus. “Who could even think about it? Russian is a state language here,” BELTA quotes the diplomat.