kyiv dear mr mclaughlin with regards to your persistent efforts of keeping the old spelling of the capital of ukraine for your information it is spelled as kyiv in english language because ukrainian government insists on kyiv spelling the state department of the u s issued a directive to write kyiv the prime minister of the u k calls the city kyiv united nations multilingual terminology database the ultimate body on geographical names approved it as kyiv major english speaking governments worldwide switched to kyiv spelling cia refers to the city as kyiv the name of the famous football club is dynamo kyiv recognised worldwide many papers e g british the guardian are already writing kyiv all major canadian media already use the spelling of kyiv and many more reasons and references on if we only listen to your arguments we would be also correcting almaty to alma ata however it is almaty and kyiv it is of course above you have had enough of proofs and strong arguments of usage of the name kyiv in the modern english language so it is time to catch up and finally fix the name to kyiv thank you