Sweden adopts Ukrainian place names, abandoning Russian-derived spellings: “We counter Russian attempts to erase Ukrainian culture”

Sweden will replace Russian-derived spellings of Ukrainian place names with Ukrainian forms in official Swedish-language communications and rename its embassy in Kyjiv, the Swedish Foreign Ministry announced on 2 July. Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said the move is intended to demonstrate Sweden's support for Ukraine and reject Russia's attempts to erase Ukrainian culture.

The decision reflects a broader international shift away from Russian transliterations inherited from the Soviet era. As governments increasingly recognize that place names are tied to national identity and sovereignty rather than linguistic convention, adopting Ukrainian spellings has become both a diplomatic statement and a rejection of Russia's imperial narratives.

The switch also renames Sweden's embassy in Kyjiv and its honorary consulate in Odesa. "Changing the name form is a way to show our support for Ukraine," Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said. "We counter Russian attempts to erase Ukrainian culture."

Spelling of a city is not a stylistic preference. Under the Russian empire and the Soviet Union, Russification served as a tool to extinguish the national identity, culture, and language of subject peoples— a practice Ukraine's Foreign Ministry has called especially painful and unacceptable.

Sweden joins a growing list of governments that have made the switch since 2022: Austria adopted Ukrainian spellings in April 2022, and Germany's Federal Foreign Office changed Kiew to Kyjiw in February 2024. Governments increasingly treat Ukrainian place names as a matter of identity and sovereignty, not typography.

Why the names were Russified in the first place

Under Soviet rule, Russian dominated official life across the 15 republics, and the West came to know Ukrainian cities by their Russian transliterations: Kiev for Kyiv, Kharkov for Kharkiv, Lvov for Lviv, Odesa for Odesa. The persistence of those forms after 1991 was more than a spelling habit. It reinforced the stereotype that "everyone in Ukraine speaks Russian" and the false framing that "Ukraine is a former part of Russia."

Ukraine has been pushing back since independence. Kyiv became the official English-language spelling in the mid-1990s, codified under Ukraine's national transliteration standard. Ukraine submitted its transliteration table for international approval, and in 2012 the UN Group of Experts on Geographical Names approved the Ukrainian national romanization system.

When that produced little movement, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry launched the #KyivNotKiev campaign in October 2018, targeting international media including the BBC, New York Times, and Reuters.

By early 2019, the Guardian had updated its style guide, the EU's diplomatic service switched its email addresses from Kiev to Kyiv, and airports including London Luton had adopted the Ukrainian form. The US Board on Geographic Names dropped Kiev as an acceptable alternative that year.

Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022 accelerated the rest: most major Western media had switched by the end of that year.

What Sweden specifically changed, and what it means in Swedish

Sweden's decision is not a straightforward adoption of the English "Kyiv." Swedish phonology renders the capital as Kyjiv — the form Sweden will now use — with Kyiv accepted as a variant reflecting English usage. Odesa and Donbas follow the Ukrainian forms directly, replacing the Russian-derived Odesa and Donbas. The change binds government agencies and the diplomatic service; Swedish media have not uniformly followed.

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the step was entirely logical: Ukrainian cities should carry Ukrainian names, not derivatives from the Russian language imposed by centuries of imperial rule.

The wider pattern: derussification at home and abroad

Inside Ukraine, the same logic drives a sweeping legal process. In April 2023, President Zelenskyy signed a law condemning and banning propaganda of Russian imperial policy and mandating the derussification of place names. In September 2024, Parliament renamed 327 settlements and four raions in a single vote, stripping names tied to Soviet figures, Russian imperial generals, and communist ideology. The process is ongoing; several hundred more settlements await new names.

Abroad, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry has spent years asking governments to drop the Russian forms through its #CorrectUA campaign. Sweden is the latest government to make the change.