Ukrainian striker Evgeny Bokhashvili clarified the situation again with publications about himself, where he was credited with allegedly calling the Russians "peace-loving people."
— In fact, I gave this interview a month and a half ago. Romanian journalists called me and asked me to tell about adaptation in the team (we are talking about "Otselula", - ed.). Then they asked me about the war in Ukraine. I didn't want to bring this topic up, but they said that the Romanians were interested in it.
I told them that there are good and bad people in every country in the world. I said specifically - if the Russians (I did not say "good", "normal" or "bad") believe that they do not want war, then they should do something, and not just say "we are good, we do not want war" . These are all talks on their part, but we must act.
With this interview, I wanted to reach out to those Russians who do not want war (if they still are), so that they would stop doubting and do something to end the war.
At the same time, I spoke with Romanian journalists in English, and they mistranslated my words. From the whole conversation about the war, they decided to briefly select a few words. For them, words do not have the same meaning at the moment as they do for us. So that's why it happened.
Not only can we not call Russians good or "peace-loving", we cannot call them anything at all.
How do people in Romania treat Ukraine and Ukrainians in general? Romanians came up to me and asked - why are the Ukrainians fighting, and not wanting to make peace? It seems to them that our country is fighting for something unrealistic, that Russia will win anyway, because it is a big country.
In an interview with Romanian journalists, I just wanted to explain that Ukrainians are fighting for their country. We are protecting what is ours - homes, families, children," Bokhashvili said.