KYIV (Reuters) – A village in the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine has been renamed Zaluzhne in honour of Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the top general in the war against Russia.
Halyna Kuts, a deputy on the Kharkiv regional council, said regional deputies had backed a motion by the village council to drop the name Vatutine, after the Soviet general who commanded Red Army operations in Ukraine during World War Two.
“The village of Vatutine is renamed Zaluzhne. Kharkiv regional council has supported this decision,” Kuts wrote on Facebook after an online session of the regional council. “This is wonderful news.”
The village, which has just over 1,200 residents, lies about 40 km (25 miles) southwest of the regional capital, Kharkiv.
Zaluzhnyi, 49, was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 2021. Together with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the four-star general has become the face of the war effort against Russia.
Ukraine has been renaming cities, villages and streets connected with Soviet history since 2015 under a so-called decommunisation law.
Ukraine says such moves, often now referred to as “derussification,” are necessary to undo centuries of policies aimed at crushing the Ukrainian identity. Derussification gained momentum after Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24 last year.
(Reporting by Olena Harmash, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
