July 3 (UPI) — Russian President Vladimir Putin named 11 military units after places in the Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Germany and Romania.
Putin signed a series of decrees, published Monday, naming recently created military units after units that operated during World War II.
The regiments were named after Ukrainian cities such as Lviv, Zhytomyr and Nizhyn, while some were named after cities in Belarus such as Vitebsk, Kobrin and Slonim.
Other units were renamed after Warsaw, Berlin and Romania’s Transylvania region.
Russian dictator Josef Stalin named the 93rd Tank Brigade after Zhytomyr in 1944 for its role in World War II, but it was renamed in 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The decrees stated the names were intended to “preserve glorious military and historic traditions, and to nurture loyalty to the fatherland and military duty among the military personnel.”
The decision to rename the military units after geographic locations may be seen as a pre-emptive move after Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Relations between the two countries have since been strained.
Putin also approved a government decree extending an embargo on the transit of Ukrainian goods through its territory through the start of 2019 on Monday.
