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Google Maps Reverts To Soviet-Era Place Names In Crimea

U.S. tech giant Google has reinstated existing Soviet-era place names on online maps of Russia-annexed Crimea after it angered Moscow by changing them to correspond with names that Ukraine hopes to adopt in future under its "decommunization" law.

Google Maps had briefly changed about 900 Crimean place names, using names Ukraine plans to give to towns and streets under legislation passed in Kyiv last year banning Soviet symbols -- part of a campaign that Russia has called “Russophobic.”

However, under a resolution adopted by Ukraine's parliament in May, the new names do not take effect until Kyiv restores control over Crimea, which Russia took over in March 2014 after sending in troops and staging a referendum widely dismissed as illegitimate.

Google's press service in Moscow said in an e-mailed response that it has restored the existing names, and included links to Russian-language Google maps showing towns such as Sovyetsky (Soviet) and Krasnogvardeiskoye (Red Guard). It did not immediately explain its reasons.

The names appeared to have also been restored on the Ukrainian-language version of Google Maps. Under decommunization, Sovyetsky is to be renamed Ichkiy and Krasnogvardeiskoye is to be called Kurman.

Google's changes had been swiftly condemned by Russia, whose communications minister suggested that it was illegal. The head of the Russian-imposed government in Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, accused Google of producing a "propaganda product rather than real maps."

Ties between Moscow and Kyiv have been severely damaged by Russia's seizure of Crimea and its separatists in a war in eastern Ukraine.

Many of the names that Ukraine hopes to give places in Crimea come from the language of the Crimean Tatars, an ethnic minority whose members were deported en masse by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin during World War II and activists say, have faced new repression from Russia since the annexation.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service and RBK

U.S. diplomats accuse Russia of undermining Ukraine peace plan:

By Robert Coalson

Two top U.S. diplomats working to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine have accused Russia of continuing to supply separatist fighters with fuel and weapons and creating a "deteriorating security situation" in the region that is as bad as it was a year ago.

Ambassador Daniel Baer, head of the U.S. mission to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt made the statements during a July 29 telephonic press briefing from Vienna.

The briefing came one day after the head of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in Ukraine, Ertugrul Apakan, and OSCE special representative on Ukraine Martin Sajdik briefed the OSCE Permanent Council on the situation.

Baer said the United States and other OSCE members were increasingly concerned by what they see as a disconnect between Russia's words and its actions regarding the conflict.

"We see continued resupply of weapons and fighters; we see continued provocations to keep the conflict going; we see continued restrictions of the SMM and its monitors; we see continued shoot-downs of SMM UAVs [drones] after they have seen Russian heavy weaponry in places where it shouldn't be," Baer said.

"And so, the message that was delivered to the Russian Federation yesterday by many, many participating states in the [OSCE] Permanent Council is that it is time to match your words with action."

Pyatt stressed the same point, saying that Russia's continued material support of separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine was "driving the conflict."

"Rather than terminating this conflict, Russia's actions are having the effect of escalating it once again," Pyatt said.

The ambassadors also accused Russia of failing to implement the Minsk agreement that was signed in September 2014 and which, along with a second agreement signed in February 2015, is supposed to provide a road map for resolving the crisis.

Pyatt said Russia had failed to withdraw troops and equipment, fully implement the cease-fire envisioned under the Minsk agreements, and release all hostages.

Baer said that the Minsk accords had "all of the steps that are necessary" to end the conflict.

"We have known what needs to be done for two years now," he said. "The problem is not in solving some sort of difficult puzzle. This is not a puzzle. The problem is political will."

Baer added that the U.S. position on not recognizing Russia's 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula of Crimea remained unchanged.

"A point that we have made here [at the OSCE] when Russian representatives say they want to have a conversation about the future of European security is that any conversation about the future of European security will have to start with Crimea," Baer said.

According to the United Nations, more than 9,400 people have been killed in fighting between Ukrainian security forces and Russia-backed militants in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.