© Domingos Oliveira
The municipality of Luxembourg City has announced that the new N3 will be known as the ‘Boulevard de Kiev’, superficially promoting the Russian spelling instead of the Ukrainian one.
In solidarity with Ukraine and its people, the Luxembourg City municipal council approved the new name last Friday. The ‘Boulevard de Kiev’ is hoped to express support from Luxembourg’s capital but since the news got out the decision has raised some questions.
Consensus among readers and supporters of Ukraine is that the boulevard should not be named ‘Kiev’ but ‘Kyiv’. There are different spelling forms for the capital’s name, with ‘Kiev’ being derived from the Russian language, whereas ‘Kyiv’ would be the correct Ukrainian transliteration. Many Ukrainians have been rejecting the Russian spelling.
RTL Today reached out to the City of Luxembourg (VDL) and has asked for a statement regarding the decision to use the Russian spelling. In a written statement, the City explains that “in Luxembourg City and on the territory of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, all squares and streets are designated by their French names”.
In addition, “the definitive road signs will later contain the Ukrainian name ‘Kyiv’ in addition to the French designation” and will show the accurate spelling of ‘Kyiv Boulevard’.
Ukraine has been actively trying to shed Russian evidence of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union by promoting the Ukrainian transliterations for Ukrainian places internationally. In 2018 The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs even launched an online campaign called ‘KyivnotKiev’ to persuade English-language media to exclusively use ‘Kyiv’. French, as well as German media, still predominantly use ‘Kiev’ in their reporting.
Since Russia started invading Ukraine in 2022 many more outlets took over the Ukrainian spelling in a show of support.