“They criticized me so harshly, they forgot about the Israel-Iran war”: Verka Serduchka responded to the language ombudsman from the stage

Ukrainian artist Andriy Danylko, performing as his iconic character Verka Serduchka, responded to recent criticism from Ukraine’s language ombudsman, Taras Kremin, over singing in Russian.

A clip of his performance in Odesa, where he addressed the controversy, was shared by local Telegram channels.

“Message for our ombudsmen: they grilled me so hard for two days, they forgot about the war between Israel and Iran,” Danylko joked from the stage.

He then sang: “You can hide beyond the sea and forest, you can even lie low at the bottom. But the Kyiv-Odesa train is rushing, and I’ll find you anyway.”

As a reminder, complaints were recently filed against Serduchka for performing songs in Russian during a concert in Kyiv. Following that, Kremin announced he had contacted the police.

However, the ombudsman later clarified that Danylko would not face any penalties. According to Kremin, the legal ban does not apply to the use of languages during the performance or playback of songs, musical works with lyrics, or phonograms. Still, he noted that inspections would continue for another month and would also involve the event organizers, who had used Russian as well.