Foreign media choose «Kyiv» transliteration to denote the Ukrainian capital

With the beginning of the all-out Russian-Ukrainian war, the American, French and Irish media began to transliterate the name of the capital of Ukraine as «Kyiv».

In 2019 the English-language media, like BBC, The Guardian and The New York Times chose this transliteration from Ukrainian, and starting from 24 February 2022 more and more foreign media began to use this transliteration.

Starting from 2 March 2022, French-language publications Noovo Info, Les Affaires and La Presse began writing the name of Ukrainian capital as «Kyiv». Starting from 1 March, the French daily Liberation changed «Kiev» to «Kyiv».

«It is difficult to change the name of the city in the newspaper, if its use is fixed. However, despite the habits of readers, political reason prevails. For «Liberation», writing «Kiev» from Russian is no longer relevant and will henceforth be written «Kyiv», – the editorial office said.

The state broadcaster of the Republic of Ireland, Raidio Teilifís Eireann (RTE), has also begun transliterating «Kyiv» with the start of an all-out Russian attack.

The largest non-profit network of radio stations in the United States of America, National Public Radio (NPR), has also begun to transliterate Kyiv’s name from Ukrainian. The radio station decided to adapt the broadcast pronunciation of Kyiv, as it changed the spelling from «Kiev» to «Kyiv» in 2019.

This decision was announced by the co-facilitators of the program All Things Considered, Mary Louise Kelly: Note that «Kyiv» became the official English name of the capital of Ukraine in 1995 and the Ukrainian government launched the KyivNotKiev campaign in 2018.

We would like to remind you that in 2020, «Kiev» was renamed «Kyiv» in the English-language Wikipedia and in the English-language version of the Facebook interface. The international base changed «Kiev» to «Kyiv» in 2019.