It reminds me a bit more of people who correct "Ka-tar" to be "Cutter" even though all three vowel sounds in the actual pronunciation of the country don't exist in English (and the actual Qataris don't care and won't correct you if you use "Ka-tar").
Kyiv is a bit more obvious since it is being done to show support for Ukraine (which means that certain people will lose their minds over it being "performative" to show their support but yes, that's why people are doing it -- and it should be obvious why actual Ukrainians might have a sore spot over a more Russian-sounding pronunciation of their capital right now). That one at least has a strong common emotional reason behind it. In other cases we get weird fetishes for non-English pronunciations in English even though we don't for thousands of other place names.
Also this rant is pretty good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjcX3MVSdyA
Kyiv is a bit more obvious since it is being done to show support for Ukraine (which means that certain people will lose their minds over it being "performative" to show their support but yes, that's why people are doing it -- and it should be obvious why actual Ukrainians might have a sore spot over a more Russian-sounding pronunciation of their capital right now). That one at least has a strong common emotional reason behind it. In other cases we get weird fetishes for non-English pronunciations in English even though we don't for thousands of other place names.