My entire life, whther while i was living in Japan, Germany, or the US, the spelling of Kiev and the pronunciation of it has remained constant. I know the locals will have different spellings and pronunciations just like cities and personal names throughout the world, but this has completely changed in the West over thw last few weeks. Now its Kyiv (Keev) vs Kee-ehv.
I know this seems small or trivial, but this is extremely fishy to me.
I'm at work right now, so I can't look it up. But I wonder if it ties in with a Q drop about the letter Y? I think you may be onto something...