Moscow Invasion, Several Cities In Ukraine Will Change The Names Of Streets And Squares Related To Russia

People's Friendship Arch di Kyiv, Ukraina. (Wikimedia Commons/Arne Müseler)

JAKARTA - A number of Ukrainian cities are planning to change the names of streets and squares linked to Russia, under a "derisification" process following the February 24 invasion.

A day after the demolition of a massive Soviet-era monument in Kyiv meant to symbolize friendship between Russia and Ukraine, the city council said it had compiled a list of 467 sites that could be considered for renaming.

They include a central square named after 19th-century writer Leo Tolstoy and a street named Russia's Lake Baikal. A street named after Minsk, the capital of Russia's close ally Belarus, is also on the list.

Since Ukraine declared the independence of the Soviet Union in 1991, to name a few, the city has been changed to erase the legacy of hated Soviet officials. Some officials now want to erase the names of Russian writers, poets and mountains.

Ihor Terekhov, mayor of the city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, said on Wednesday, as soon as the war with Russia ends, he will submit a bill to his city council, replacing the names of places affiliated with Russian names.

"Even without these names, there will be too many scars that will remind us for a long time what kind of neighbors lie beyond our eastern and northern borders," he wrote on messaging app Telegram.

Meanwhile, cities in northern Ukraine have started the process of renaming streets with army units defending them.

Under the proposal of the governor of the Chernihiv region, the streets or squares in the regional capital will be renamed the 1st Separate Tank Brigade.

Earlier, Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko last week warned against removing anything affiliated with Russia.

Citing Ukrainian-born Russian novelist Nikolai Gogol as an example, he said some "characters have a (global) cultural heritage."

It is known, Moscow called its military action as a 'special operation' to disarm Ukraine and defeat the fascists. Meanwhile, Ukraine and the West say the fascist accusations are baseless, with war being an unprovoked act of aggression.