I think everybody could be satisfied by a small semantic redefinition of the meaning of Link records.

The current practice seems to be:

1. Link records in the main files indicate that a given zone's data are also used for an area in another country.
Example in file europe

Link Europe/Belgrade Europe/Ljubljana   # Slovenia
Link Europe/Belgrade Europe/Podgorica   # Montenegro
Link Europe/Belgrade Europe/Sarajevo    # Bosnia and Herzegovina
Link Europe/Belgrade Europe/Skopje      # North Macedonia
Link Europe/Belgrade Europe/Zagreb      # Croatia

Example in file Africa
Link Africa/Abidjan Africa/Bamako       # Mali
Link Africa/Abidjan Africa/Banjul       # Gambia
Link Africa/Abidjan Africa/Conakry      # Guinea
Link Africa/Abidjan Africa/Dakar        # Senegal
Link Africa/Abidjan Africa/Freetown     # Sierra Leone
Link Africa/Abidjan Africa/Lome         # Togo
Link Africa/Abidjan Africa/Nouakchott   # Mauritania
Link Africa/Abidjan Africa/Ouagadougou  # Burkina Faso
Link Africa/Abidjan Atlantic/St_Helena  # St Helena

2. Link records in file backward
# This file provides links between current names for timezones
# and their old names.  Many names changed in late 1993.
...
Link    Asia/Kolkata            Asia/Calcutta
...

If the meaning of Link records in the main files were expanded to also indicate
alternative zone names, then an entry in file europe

# alternative zone name Europe/Kyiv
Link    Europe/Kiev        Europe/Kyiv
would satisfy the Ukrainian requests.

Such a link results automatically in the creation of a zoneinfo file
Europe/Kyiv which is identical to Europe/Kiev

On 2/11/21 4:20 PM, Brian Park wrote:

I don't still don't understand why there is reluctance to add
LINK entries. Wouldn't that resolve most of these requests?

We'd keep getting requests, though, if word got out that one could plant political flags into tzdb simply by asking. Suppose North Korea started calling Seoul "Kim Il-sung City" on the grounds that it's their city and they can call it what they want? And that is not a fanciful supposition: North Koreans seriously suggested doing exactly that in the 1990s after Kim Il-sung died.

At some point we need to say that tzdb is about civil time, not about settling or documenting other political disputes. We might as well say it now rather than later.