Symon Petliura The Jewish Forum of Ukraine has protested against the Kyiv City Council's decision to rename Comintern Street to Symon Petliura Street.

"The Jewish Forum of Ukraine believes that the names of historically controversial personalities should not be given to streets and cities, and it is better to return to them their original geographical and historical names, and what counts more, that these names be far from politics," Jewish Forum of Ukraine Director Arkadiy Monastyrsky told Interfax on Friday.

Monastyrsky said he had addressed Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky to veto the Kyiv City Council decision.

It is believed that Petliura's troops are responsible for particularly cruel Jewish pogroms in Ukraine in 1918-1919. After the so-called Ukrainian Directory led by Petliura was crushed by Red Army in late 1919, Petliura fled to Warsaw. From the end of 1924, Petliura lived in Paris, where Jewish anarchist Sholom Schwartzbard assassinated him on May 25, 1926, saying that, in doing so, he avenged the murder of his relatives, including parents, during the pogroms.

The investigation into Peliura's assassination lasted 16 months, after which a jury at a French court acquitted Schwartzbard.