Given all that's going on, I found it jarring that it uses the Russian spellings of Kharkiv and Kyiv. I did find the content a little interesting. The other articles on that site seem rather strange, like they exist purely to give westerners more favorable views of the Russian state.
There's nothing inherently wrong writing it Kiev in foreign languages. Of course, during todays Russian war of agression against Kiev and the Ukraine, it's a good show of support to write it Kyiv. But out of old habit I write Kiev most of the time.
My understanding is that most residents of Kyiv/Kiev speak Russian day-to-day, and therefore are more likely to use "Kiev" themselves. Russian language ≠ Russian state
It's a bit convoluted. Those people may speak Russian, but then "Kiev" is not a Russian spelling - it's a transliteration of one into other languages. And since those other languages are already foreign, they might as well prefer "Kyiv" for, basically, symbolic reasons.
A lot of Ukrainians I know seem to be speaking much more Ukrainian than they did a few years ago. People from Russian speaking towns.
There does seem to be a serious de-russification vibe, stronger than ever and definitely not just something foreigners are interested in.
I'll give just one small example that I'm reminded of... There's been a lot of drama about signs when you enter a town. Russians will capture a town, paint the sign with their flag, change spellings to replace і with и, etc. Ukrainians will recapture, repaint, and switch to their spelling... It's a thing.
Russia focused so much on language issues to justify what it's doing that it backfired - in any discussion where Russian vs Ukrainian can be brought up, it will inevitably be symbolic now, regardless of what people speak.
I mean, I don't call Germany Deutschland either, so I don't really think it's ignorance. Nor do I call Prague "Praha" except when I'm actually speaking Czech. Kiev is much easier for native English speakers to pronounce, and I'm not going to switch to a more unwieldy pronunciation to make some sort of political point.
Sorry about that, I didn't realize this before I shared it. I had no agenda in sharing it, I did see that it had some Ukrainian contributions listed. I found it because I was trying to find the creator of Filler, when I stumbled upon this list. And not that anyone asked, but I am a Wisconsinite and I support Ukraine.
There is nothing wrong about Russia or sharing russian media. Demonization of Russia is crazy and hypocritical. We should start demonizing the USA more, for their wars of agression against Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, Panama and many more. Russia is unfairly demonized, and it is a vicious demonization that is not given to countries that have done far worse to the world, like as the USA.
Given all that's going on, I found it jarring that it uses the Russian spellings of Kharkiv and Kyiv. I did find the content a little interesting. The other articles on that site seem rather strange, like they exist purely to give westerners more favorable views of the Russian state.