Ukraine President Zelensky signs law banning place names connected with Russia

Kyiv: In an effort of “de-Russification” amid Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed legislation prohibiting naming geographic sites in Ukraine after Russian figures or historical events associated with Russian aggression.

Titled “On Geographical Names,” the law aims to address the “decolonization of toponymy” and to regulate the use of place names in Ukraine, according to the text of the law.

The law prohibits naming geographical sites with titles that “glorify, perpetuate, promote, or symbolize” Russia or its “prominent, memorable, historical and cultural places, cities, dates, events, and figures who carried out military aggression against Ukraine and other sovereign countries, Kyiv Independent reported.

The law also bans geographic markers associated with “state totalitarian policies and practices related to the persecution of opposition figures, dissidents and other persons” who criticized “totalitarian Soviet and totalitarian Russian regimes.”

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The drive to remove monuments and geographical names associated with Russia and the Soviet Union has been underway in Ukraine since 2015 when a so-called “decommunization” law was adopted.

Since then, the names of more than 900 settlements and some 50,000 streets have been changed, according to data from RIA Novosti news agency.

Moscow has denounced such policies, saying that attempts to cancel Russian culture and the “forced Ukrainization” of the country violate international norms and infringe upon the rights of around a quarter of Ukraine’s population, who are Russian-speaking.

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