View of Kyiv. February 24, 2022. File photoMOSCOW, April 15The city council of the Ukrainian capital has renamed the square «friendship of Kyiv and Moscow» into the square «Heroes of Mariupol», said the mayor of Kyiv, Vitaliy Klitschko. Earlier, the city council of Uzhgorod announced its intention to rename 58 streets whose names are associated with Russian figures. «Today I submitted a draft decision on renaming the former square of friendship between Kyiv and Moscow into the square of the heroes of Mariupol. And the deputies supported such an initiative,» Klitschko is quoted on his website The mayor recalled that the monument to friendship between the cities was dismantled in 2021, and said that there are dozens of streets and objects in Kyiv that, in his opinion, need to be renamed. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the Ukrainian authorities have been For years, they pursued a course of aggressive de-Russification and forced assimilation. He noted that Russia wants to see Ukraine as friendly, without a ban on the Russian language and Russian culture.