Inside the Race to Protect Ukrainian

Kyiv’s language revitalization program seeks to save Ukrainians’ mother tongue through complex state law. Even if you aren’t Ukrainian, it is still likely that you took part in a small language revolution after the invasion of Ukraine. A lot of us altered our pronunciation and spelling of the Ukrainian capital city, Kyiv, following Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, when news outlets rapidly published pieces recommending we call the city Kyiv, not Kiev. “Kiev” transliterates its Russian name and pronunciation, ending in more of an “eh” than an “ee.” In the 20th century, Soviet power and delicious chicken Kievs ossified this pronunciation for most of the Western world, and this, Ukrainians argue, is textbook Russification: the ongoing attempts of the Russian government to acculturate Ukrainians into its Russo-sphere.