Other cases of strong colloquialisms used by Yanukovych include the incident when he called former president Viktor Yushchenko "a coward and a babbler", as well as a speech in Donetsk during the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, when he referred to the electorate of his opponent Viktor Yushchenko as "goats that make our lives difficult" ("эти козлы, которые нам мешают жить"). Later, during TV debates with Yushchenko he explained, "I called the traitors goats. According to the Bible, the goat is a traitor, and there are also rams, sheep." After his February 2014 escape to Russia, during his 28 February press conference in Rostov-on-Don, Yanukovych said, "Ukraine is our strategic partner" (misspeaking and confusing Ukraine with Russia). During the same press conference he also broke a pen in an emotional outburst, while trying to apologize to the Ukrainian people.