Kremlin propaganda is massively spreading posts that Ukraine is allegedly struggling with Russian surnames. And that’s why a new service has been introduced in the “Action” application, which allows you to “Ukrainize” surnames that have Russian roots.
As “proof”, propagandists distribute a screenshot of a system message in “Diya” with a proposal to change the surname from Russian to Ukrainian. However, in reality, this screenshot was created by the Russians in a photo editor. More on the details of this fake.
Fake
“Ukrainian public services offer to abandon the “Russian” surname. “Your surname Lebedev has Russian roots. We suggest you think about Ukrainization and changing your surname: Lebedenko, Lebedinsky, Lebedchuk and others.” They are squeezing Russians out of themselves drop by drop…”, the propagandists write in the original language in their posts.
First of all, it is worth noting that neither the “Diya” application nor the “Diya” portal currently has such an option as changing the last name. http://surl.li/atnkez
You can change your last name by contacting the DRATS department. http://surl.li/cbnkbw
Secondly, there is no policy in Ukraine regarding the “Ukrainization” of surnames that have Russian roots. You can change your last name voluntarily and at any time.
In addition to what concerns the surname “Lebedev”, according to the data of the website of the genealogical society “Relatives”, which researches genealogies by surnames, “Lebedev” is not the most common surname in Ukraine. About 4,200 people have it on the territory of Ukraine. And its roots – “leb” can be related to the West Slavic, Polish or Czech lexeme “leb” – “forehead, forehead, head”. http://surl.li/bktgro
As for the screenshot itself, the message allegedly from “Diya” has several errors that indicate that it was written by Russians, in particular, the word “welcome” contains the letter “e”, when it should have been “e”. Instead of “his” (the last name is a masculine word), “her” is written (in the Russian version, “surname” is feminine). Likewise, addresses in the Ukrainian language are written in the vocative case – it should be “Kyril”, and after the word “year” there should be a hyphen.
CONCLUSIONS
The “Action” application does not offer to “Ukrainize” surnames with Russian roots. Such a service is not available in the mobile or web version of the public services portal. According to researchers, the last name itself, which is allegedly proposed to be changed, may have Polish or Czech roots.
Such fakes are part of the propaganda narrative about the “Russophobia” of Ukrainians. The Russians are trying to justify the attack on Ukraine and war crimes against Ukrainians with such excuses.
