Which Ukraine!? 
this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2025
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badposting
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The, Ukraine. The.
i wasnt saying "the ukraine" until that bot on reddit that some loser set up told me off for using the phrase "the ukraine war" in a reddit comment, at which point i started referring to it as such because fuck off you scolds
Military Operation with Russian Characteristics
Based contrarian
The Hexbear
"The correct term is simply "Ukraine," as it is a sovereign country and not a region or territory. Using "the Ukraine" is considered outdated and reflects a historical context from the Soviet era."
Why not "Netherlands" then instead of "the Netherlands"? It's an independent country as well.
they do this to humiliate you
Borderland: 
the Borderland: 
Bit idea: amerikkkan patriot guy who insists on calling it "The Ukraine" because "If The is good enough for The United States of America, it's good enough for The Ukraine!"
It's weird how quickly that changed, if you asked me five years ago I would've said that it's called ”the Ukraine” in English and it's just one of those quirks like how Switzerland is die Schweiz in German, but no, apparently it's an evil Russian plot and we must stop saying it immediately.
It's so absurd because Russian doesn't even fucking have the direct article. You can't say "the Ukraine" in Russian because the language just does not have the necessary part of speech to do so.
Like this is literally some weird totemic thing libs just made up from whole cloth and turned into a shibboleth to differentiate between people faithfully cleaving to official western-approved propaganda lines (good, smart, free thinking) and anyone who doesn't reorient their entire mode of speech to conform to whatever whimsical bullshit the corporate talking heads have started popularizing today (bad, unfree, probably a perfidious foreign agent doing a heckin wrongthink) and instead is just continuing to use the longstanding and better scanning "the Ukraine" that's 100% the default for English speakers because it's pronounced like "the UK" but with an "r" and an "n" mixed in without changing the syllables or vowels.
"the Ukraine" that's 100% the default for English speakers because it's pronounced like "the UK" but with an "r" and an "n" mixed in without changing the syllables or vowels
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"the ukraine" was never the default for me (east coast yankkkee in my 30s). it feels kind of old timey to me. i agree that the media has made up the whole "the ukraine is the ruzzian way to pronounce it!" bit, but before that "the ukraine" was old person coded
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if "the ukraine" is the default for some english speakers, the reason is absolutely not "because it's pronounced like "the UK" but with an "r" and an "n" mixed in without changing the syllables or vowels". toponyms dont really work like that
Same thing with 'Keev' suddenly becoming the only acceptable pronunciation of Kiev/Kyiv. The 'authentic' way to pronounce it uses vowel sounds that are close to Polish and are very difficult for most English speakers to get right. The distinction between the Ukrainian and Russian pronunciations was artificially reconstructed within the bounds of English speakers' familiarity as "keev" vs "key-ev" in a way mostly unrecognizable to the actual speakers. But now there was an easy indicator of whether someone was sufficiently loyal and willing to snap to the good righteous Ukrainian way, or if they were an agent of Putin who said it the Russian way.
As a linguistic pedant, the Kiev shit drives me nuts! Like yeah lemme just refer to every city name in the world by its official language
It's Kyyyyiv!!!
It's 成都 not Chengdu!!!!! 
Linguistic prescriptivists can catch these hands
Technically, China DID rename Beijing from "Peking", and Chengdu from Chengtu. But it wasn't a political decision, but a linguistic one (updated latinisation of Chinese)
Notice how Wikipedia changed all Ukrainian cities' names to Ukrainian ones, EXCEPT FOR CHERNOBYL. (It should be "Chornobyl")
The Theukraine
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
While there is a Ukraine, I am in it, while there is a Banderite element, I am of it, and while there is a "The" in the name, I am not free.