Google has removed new names of the Crimean cities, implied by the Ukrainian law on decommunization, from Google Maps. Now users can see those names which exist de facto.
See also: Google Maps decomunized Crimea
On July 27, Google Maps service renamed a number of settlements on the territory of the Crimea in Ukrainian and Russian versions of the service. Namely, the village of Kirov was renamed to Islyam-Terek, Krasnogvardeiskoe - to Kurman and the Soviet settlement became Ichki. All these names were in Ukrainian law on decommunization. At the same time the names are renamed selectively for Ukrainian users of Google Maps. For instance, Artemovsk is called Bakhmutov on Google Maps, and Dnepropetrovsk and Dneprodzerzhinsk are left with the same names.
See also: Putin abolished the Crimean Federal District
Earlier, Russian Minister of Communications Nikolai Nikiforov said that if the company treats Russian legislation and the names of Russian cities and towns carelessly, "this won't allow it to conduct business effectively in the territory of Russia." The Head of the Crimea Sergey Aksenov also said that Google Maps service is "misleading users by palm them off propaganda product instead of real terrain maps."
Previously, Google stated that they are "actively working in order to return former names to Russian Google Maps" and ill comment on the situation later.
See also: Google Science Fair: Ukrainians in the list of top 100 best young scientists