E-Paper
‘Kyiv not Kiev’: Zelenskyy plea on ‘outdated Soviet spellings’ of Ukraine cities
Japan's foreign ministry announced that the capital of Ukraine will henceforth be referred to on all official documents as “Kiiu” as the Japanese transliteration of the Ukrainian spelling “Kyiv”. Till now, the official usage was “Kiefu”, which more accurately reflects the Soviet spelling of “Kiev”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy took to Twitter on Thursday to advocate the correct spelling of the country's capital Kyiv. “#KyivnotKiev,” he tweeted and also thanked Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for following the same.
Zelenskyy said it is “high time” that outdated Soviet spellings of the east-European country's cities are scrapped and the “correct Ukrainian form” is adopted.
“Grateful to Japan and Fumio Kishida for already doing so and [would] encourage others to follow. #KyivnotKiev,” the President added in his post on the micro-blogging site.
Earlier in the day, Japan's foreign ministry announced that the capital of Ukraine will henceforth be referred to on all official documents as “Kiiu” as the Japanese transliteration of the Ukrainian spelling “Kyiv”. Till now, the official usage was “Kiefu”, which more accurately reflects the Soviet spelling of “Kiev”.
The change was announced in line with the feedback shared by Ukraine, according to Japanese daily Mainichi. Japan's foreign ministry has also begun using the revised spelling in its official documents. The Mainichi report further said that the Japanese government will eventually begin to use “Kiiu”, written in Japanese characters called katakana, as the official spelling of the Ukrainian capital across all ministries.
However, for the change to happen, the Japanese government first needs to amend a law that specifies the names and locations of diplomatic missions abroad. The foreign ministry, the Mainichi reported, plans to submit the amendment to the next Diet session (House of Representatives or lower house of the Parliament) at the earliest.
The move can be seen as a way for Japan to show further support towards strife-torn Ukraine that has been battling Russian invasion for over a month now.
This development comes on the day secretary-general of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Jens Stoltenberg said that Russian troops are withdrawing from Ukraine but are “regrouping and repositioning” in the Donbas region.
“At the same time, Russia maintains pressure on Kyiv and other cities. So we can expect additional offensive actions, bringing even more suffering,” Reuters quoted Stolenberg as saying.
Reports also said that the Russian military continued its shelling on the outskirts of Kyiv despite promising to scale back operations during the face-to-face talks between the two countries in Turkey on Tuesday.
