Lost in translation: how one word almost quarreled Ukraine and the USA

White House officials have said that henceforth, a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine will no longer be characterized as "inevitable" (imminent). In the United States, this word is considered inappropriate. Writes about it "European truth".

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This was stated by White House Speaker Jen Psaki.

“I used that word once. I think others have used it too. And then we didn’t use it, because it sent a signal that we were not going to send, as if we know that Russian President Vladimir Putin has already made a decision, ”Psaki explained.

She recently said that the invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine remains "inevitable", which led to a negative reaction from the authorities in Ukraine. Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, disagreed and said such characteristics could cause panic and economic upheaval.

Psaki said, among other things, that Biden's decision to deploy 3 US troops to Eastern Europe was taken after extensive consultations with allies, while she noted that such a move was not prompted by a specific event in recent days.

The White House Speaker countered that the deployment could be seen as an escalation in tensions.

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“Here it is important to clearly understand that there is one aggressor. This aggressor is Russia,” Psaki stressed.

What Zelensky did not like

Back in November, the President of Ukraine said that war was possible, but stressed that the country was ready for it. Lately, Zelenskiy has sought to be calm and tell his colleagues that the confrontation with Russia is not so terrible. Politico.

“I am the President of Ukraine, I am here. I think I know the details better,” he told reporters in Kiev, noting that the pattern of threats has been “constant” since Russia seized the Crimean peninsula by force in 2014.

Zelenskiy's change of heart, according to several people close to him and his team, is due in part to growing anger at the Biden administration. Authorities in Ukraine and some in Europe say the US is allowing diplomats to leave Ukraine prematurely and unnecessarily scaring locals and the financial markets, increasing borrowing costs for Kiev.

What’s more, Zelenskiy reportedly fears that the US is deliberately fanning the threat from Russia so that it has the political space to make a deal with the Kremlin.

“I cannot be like other politicians who are grateful to the United States just for being the United States,” Zelensky said.

Scandal over a word

But most of all, the Ukrainian president does not like the word used by US officials, which does not have an exact translation into Ukrainian.

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Biden said Russia "could attack" at any time, citing the presence of 120 Russian troops near the border, according to several people in the US and Ukraine familiar with their conversation. This echoes Psaki's statement that an invasion "remains inevitable".

There is no direct translation of the word imminent into Ukrainian - this is the word "inevitably", which most of all corresponds to close synonyms "by all means" or "inevitably". But it's not exactly the same, and there is not a single Ukrainian word that conveys the meaning in the same way as in English.

According to Webster's Dictionary, the word imminent is often used to refer to something bad or dangerous that seems dangerously close, that is, that it could happen. It is not in the concept of the word itself that this event is inevitable.

“Given that we are still in the diplomatic phase, Ukraine is trying to prevent this from escalating into a military phase for both Russia and NATO,” said Evgeny Chausovsky, a research fellow at the New Lines Institute in Washington, DC.

Because of this misunderstanding, a conflict almost broke out between the United States and Ukraine.

“Even before the issue with the inaccurate translation of the word was resolved, sources in the White House relayed Biden’s words that “the Ukrainian president is either annoying, infuriating, or completely counterproductive,” the White House said.

But, as it turned out later, the reason for everything was a simple misunderstanding and "difficulties in translation."

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