Zelenskyy signs law banning place names associated with Russia

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a law on April 21 that prohibits naming geographic sites in Ukraine after Russian figures or historical events associated with Russian aggression.

The move is part of larger “de-Russification” efforts in Ukraine amid Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Kyiv Independent reports.

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.”

It 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.”