The fight for a letter: how Ukraine is removing Russia’s imperial legacy

For decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, remnants of the Soviet and Russian imperial legacy, such as symbols, street names and the names of cities and villages, remained visible in Ukraine’s public spaces. Russia’s 2014 invasion, followed by the full-scale assault in 2022, accelerated efforts to purge this legacy, though not always without controversy.

For years, Dmytro Karpiy has been on a mission to erase Soviet and Russian imperial symbols from Ukraine’s streets, advocating for the renaming of places and the removal of monuments that glorify a past empire. His latest battle is over a single letter in the name of Brovary, a city in Kyiv Oblast, where he has lived for 16 years.

July 8, 2025 - Olena Makarenko