Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has signed a law prohibiting assigning names associated with Russia and the USSR to geographical objects. Previously, this document was adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
As Rada Deputy Oleksiy Goncharenko reported, the law prohibits assigning names to geographical objects that “exalt, perpetuate, propagate or symbolize” Russia. The ban applies to names associated with sights, memorable, historical and cultural places, cities, dates, events in Russia and the Soviet Union.
Legally taboo in the names are also personalities who “carried out aggression against Ukraine” or “persecuted representatives of the opposition”.
The fight against names and monuments associated with Russia and the USSR began in Ukraine in 2015. Then the law on “decommunization” was passed. Since then, local authorities have changed the names of more than 900 settlements and around 50,000 streets. Sometimes this struggle goes beyond Ukraine’s borders: for example, in March, Ukrainian polar explorers “decommunized” panels in Antarctica.
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