With Ukraine becoming independent from the former Soviet Union, the Ukrainian government has set about to reestablish its own language and original spellings. Two of the most noticeable differences are Chornobyl (Ukrainian spelling) and Chernobyl (Russian spelling); and Kyiv (Ukrainian spelling) and Kiev (Russian spelling).

Our spelling change was made at the request of Ukraine government officials with whom we work. We also have several members of our INSP staff who are living and working in either Slavutych or Kyiv, Ukraine; and we have several Ukraine citizens working on the INSP program in the United States. All of these individuals have expressed the need to change our spelling to the Ukraine (English) spelling, and not the former Russian (English) spelling.

In addition, the U.S. Department of State, at the request of the Ukraine government, advised our offices in August 1997 to change to the preferred spelling of the country in which the city or nuclear power plant is located. At that point, we changed our web-site spelling to Ukraine's preference, which is Chornobyl.

Additional information can be obtained by looking at the following websites: