Ukraine's President Zelenskyy announced he will look into a petition - which has received over 25,000 signatures - calling for Russia to be renamed 'Moscovia'
ADVERTISEMENTUkraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced he would look into a petition that proposes officially renaming Russia as 'Moscovia'.
Zelenskyy is reported to have asked Prime Minister Denis Shmigal that the petition be comprehensively looked at.
“This matter needs to be carefully worked out both in terms of the historical and cultural context, and from the perspective of possible international legal consequences," Zelenskyy said in a statement on Friday.
The petition, which has collected over 25,000 signatures, also requests changing the term Russian to Moscovian, and the Russian Federation to Moscovian Federation.
The Vice Chairman of Russia's Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, hit back on social media by calling Zelenskyy a "head Nazi", and said that the Russians would respond by calling Ukraine "Schweinisch Bandera-Reich".
The author of the petition claims that Russia has only existed since 1721 after Tsar Peter the Great proclaimed the Muscovite kingdom the 'Russian Empire'.
Before the declaration of the Russian Empire, Russia was known as Muscovy, or the Grand Duchy of Moscow, as well as the Tsardom of Russia.
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