>>4205558Which is why it's less common to say "The Ukraine" these days.
Ukrainian Nationalists want people to view Ukraine as a sovereign an independent people, and so they want people to think of Ukraine as the name of a nation, rather then an old word for "that weird bit in between the borders."
So they started asking other countries to change the official english name from "The Ukraine" to Ukraine.
And that was fairly recently, which is why people still say The Ukraine.
