Replacing “kopecks” with “steps”: a historic bill was registered in the Rada

The revival of the name of the coins “step” is justified by the historical and linguistic tradition of Ukraine.

A bill to rename the coin “kopeck” to “step” has been registered in parliament .

The relevant draft law No. 14093 was published on the website of the Verkhovna Rada. It was initiated by the Speaker of the Parliament Ruslan Stefanchuk and his deputies.

It is noted that changing the name of the circulation coin “kopeck” (one hundredth of a hryvnia) to the historically grounded and specifically Ukrainian name “shag” will make it possible to revive the national traditions of Ukraine in the denomination of money and complete the monetary reform begun in 1996.

The authors of the bill emphasize that even 34 years after the declaration of independence, there is a denominator that still unites our country with Russia – this is the name of the currency coin “kopeck”, which is enshrined at the legislative level.

“In the context of large-scale Russian aggression, replacing kopecks with shags is an important and necessary step, because today kopecks remain in circulation only in states hostile to Ukraine. Of the 15 countries that were part of the USSR, the kopeck remains in only three: Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and the so-called “Transnistria”. To ignore this fact is to maintain the connection between Ukraine and hostile narratives,” the explanatory note to the draft law states.

The document states that the revival of the Ukrainian name for coins “shag” is justified by the historical and linguistic tradition of Ukraine, while the name “kopeck” has a hostile, post-Soviet and Russian origin.

“Over a hundred Ukrainian folk sayings and proverbs mention the shag, which indicates its widespread existence among the people. This name is also widely used in classical Ukrainian literature, in particular, it is often mentioned in the works of Taras Shevchenko, Lesya Ukrainka, Ivan Kotlyarevsky, Panas Myrny, Ivan Nechuy-Levytskyi and other writers,” the explanatory note says.

It is emphasized that after the National Bank puts into circulation 50-shag coins, it is not expected that 50-kopeck coins will be withdrawn from circulation at once.

The new and old design coins will be in circulation in parallel. Accordingly, according to the NBU’s estimates, there will be no additional costs associated with the disposal of 50-kopeck coins and the production of 50-shag circulation coins to replace them.

It is planned to return the historical name to the circulating coin by the 30th anniversary of the monetary reform and the introduction of its own currency in Ukraine, which will be celebrated in 2026.

Replacing “kopecks” with “steps” – top news

In September 2024, the National Bank initiated the change of the name of the coins from “kopeck” to “shag” in order to restore historical justice, promote de-Russification, and revive national traditions in monetary circulation.

NBU Chairman Andriy Pyshny noted that this is a question of decommunization, decolonization, a return to one’s origins and to one’s own historical values. According to him, the kopeck is “a piece of Moscow that remains in our pockets, on our price tags, and most importantly, in our heads.”

(C)UNIAN 2025