The village of Pershotravneve in the Odesa region was decolonized. Its new name is Gurivske, in honor of the soldiers of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (known as GUR).
This was reported by the GUR press service.
The settlement is located in Rozdilnyancky district of Odesa. The Institute of National Memory of Ukraine explained this decision by the fact that during a full-scale war with the Russian Federation, the GUR soldiers perform a number of complex tasks, from strategic intelligence to combat operations.
The village was renamed according to a resolution of the Verkhovna Rada, which took effect on September 26, 2024. The special forces added that the name Gurivske is not accidental for Odesa. It symbolizes the historical role of the region in the formation of national special services.
"For example, it was in Odesa in 1886 that Vsevolod Zmienko, a prominent military figure of the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-1921, a corporal general of the Army of the Ukrainian Peopleʼs Republic, one of the organizers of the military special service of the State Center of the Ukrainian Peopleʼs Republic in exile Vsevolod Zmienko was born," the agency says.
Decolonization in Ukraine
In 2022, 9,859 toponyms were renamed and 145 monuments associated with Russian figures were dismantled in Ukraine.
In September 2024, the Verkhovna Rada failed to support Resolution No. 11188 on de-Russification of the names of 333 Ukrainian settlements. 208 MPs out of the required 261 voted for it.
The leadership of the parliament and factions introduced a new resolution from which five settlements were removed, with the renaming of which there were problems. It was about Yuzhne, Yuzhnoukrainsk, Synelnykove, Pervomaisk and Pavlohrad. After that, MPs of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine generally supported Resolution No. 12041 on changing the names of 327 settlements as part of de-Russification.
For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine please follow us on X.