Kyiv street and square to be renamed after Caucasian imams

An illustration on the topic of renaming a street and square in honor of the Sheikh Mansur Battalion and Imam Shamil. Photo: shutterstock

In early December 2025, the Kyiv City Council decided to rename a street and a square in the capital, giving them the names of the Sheikh Mansur Battalion and Imam Shamil. The city authorities linked this decision to solidarity in the fight against Russian troops. This was reported by New Dosh.

In the Dniprovskyi district of Kyiv, Anton Makarenko Street was renamed to Sheikh Mansur Battalion Street. Anton Makarenko was a Soviet educator and writer, one of the ideologists of the communist education system, who lived and worked in the first half of the 20th century. His name previously belonged to a street in the residential area of the capital.

Sheikh Mansur was a leader of the Caucasian highlanders at the end of the 18th century. A Ukrainian battalion, formed from Chechen emigrants, which has been participating in combat operations on the side of Ukraine since 2014, is named after him.

Also in Kyiv, a previously unnamed square in the Shevchenkivskyi district was renamed to Imam Shamil Square, after one of the leaders of the North Caucasian liberation movement of the 19th century. The initiative was put forward by the "All-Ukrainian Congress of the Peoples of Dagestan" led by Akhmad Akhmedov, who fights as part of the battalion named after Imam Shamil on the side of Ukraine.

The decision to rename was part of a broader policy of derussification. Earlier, on December 4, 2025, Lavrska Street in Kyiv, where the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra is located, was renamed. It was included in Ivan Mazepa Street, stating that the previous name was considered associated with the aggressor country.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that the largest menorah in Europe was lit on Maidan.

Read also