[shadowlands1960]

I know, that new spelling annoys me also.

[hanamizu]

I know, that new spelling annoys me also.

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I’m not a linguist, but here goes. ‘Kiev’ is rendered as Kиев in Russian. The letter that looks like a backwards N makes the long-e sound, the letter that looks like e makes a ye sound and the letter that looks like B makes the v sound.

Ukrainian uses pretty much the same alphabet but uses an ï to make the ye sound rather than the Russian e. I’m pretty sure both languages say the name of the town as ‘Kiev’.