You may have noticed the spelling of Ukraine's capital city, Kyiv, may not match up with the way you've seen it in high school social studies classes.
The way you hear the name pronounced on television may have also caught your ear — "Keev," instead of "Key-yev," and you may be asking why it's changed.
When Ukraine splintered from the Soviet Union in 1991 and became an independent country, it urged that its own spelling and pronunciation be used.
The Poynter Institute, a non-profit that helps advance best practices across media outlets, requested that journalists covering the current conflict to “avoid the Russian influence when describing geography.”
Wire services like Associated Press and Reuters, broadcast networks, and cable outlets including (but not limited to) CNN and Fox News, have acknowledged the requests and have changed the spelling and pronunciation of Kyiv to the preferred way.
National Public Radio published this explainer about their decision to change, incorporating more historical context.
For similar reasons, news agencies across the globe stopped using "the" when discussing the country; in an attempt to make Ukraine sound like a part of Russia, the government started calling Ukraine “The Ukraine” as though it were a region and not an independent country.
