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In English, the definite article is used with geographical identifiers primarily in one of three situations: 1. If the name is plural ('the Philippines', 'the Netherlands') 2. If a common noun is included ('the United States', 'the Ivory Coast.') 3. If the region in question is a sub-region of another ('the Sudatenland', 'the Saar'). Prior to its 1991 independence, the technical name of Ukraine as a constituent part of the Soviet Union was the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, and thus by reasons likely stemming from 2 and 3 above was often referred to in English as the Ukraine.As none of the three conditions now hold, however, the use of the definite article is now obsolete. Since the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine the English-speaking worldhas largely stopped using the article.
The Ukraine is very much a part of the nation we call Russia. Russia was founded by Vikings who instead of putting to sea travelled the rivers of Eastern Europe into the far reaches of this land. One Viking-Rus settlement was Kiev and it grew into the strongest of the early Rus states. When the king of Kiev chose to be Christian in the orthodox rites it set Eastern European christendom apart from Rome. Kievian Russia was destroyed when the Mongols invaded Russia and occupied much of it. The survivirs of the sacking of Kiev fled to Russian principalities like Moscow which preserved the spark that became the new Russia in centuries to come. While a new Russia was being created The Ukraine fell under the occupation of The Golden Horde and then the Ottoman Turks who controlled the Southern Ukraine and the Crimea. Much of what is now the Western Ukraine passed into the control of first a huge state called Lithuania and then the Kingdom of Poland. In the 17th and 18th Century Russia centered in Moscow grew strong enough to turn its attentions to its Southern and Western frontiers Peter the Great broke Swedish ,Polish and Lithuanian power in the West and began the process of driving the Ottoman Turks out of places like Krasnodar and the Crimea. Catherine the Great finished the reconquest of the Ukraine and with the Prussians and Austrians partioned Poland and Lithuania putting Warsaw, Vilnius and Lvov under Imperial Russian control. The Ukraine thgus was part of the Russian Empire from that point onwards. In 1918 a large part of the Western Ukraine ended up as part of the new state of Poland recreated by the Versailles Accord ending WW!. Stalin corrected this in 1939 when the Molotov-von Ribbentrop Pact gave 1/3 0f Poland and Lithuania back to the Soviets. The boundary between the 3rd Reich and the USSR drawn by Hitler and Stalin is the present eastern boundery of todays Poland. The lands annexed by the Soviets were appended to either the Ukraine or Belorussia. In the 1950s The Ukraine's boundaries were changed by Nikta Khruschev when he transfered much of what is the Eastern Ukraine and the Crimea from the Russian Federated Soviet Socialist Republic (RFSSR) to the Ukraine (UkSSR). This was done in part to make the Ukraine more Russian and because Nikta Khrushchev was born in the Donets region (Nikta came up through the CPSU in the Ukrainian Republic) as was one of his protagees a young metaluurgist engineer named Leonid Brezhnev.So the pro-Russian East of the Ukraine has only been a part of the Ukraine since the end of the Second World War. The need to make the Ukraine more loyally Russian was demostrated to the Soviets by the behavior of some Ukrainians when this area was occupied by the Germans. They collaborated with the Nazi's and helped the Germans kill Jews and Russians during thius occupation.
Why would Russia invade and see trade sanctions put in place and a boycott of the 2018 World Cup. The Russians wouldn't gain anything financially from invading, indeed their army would become a target for rebel groups who would not doubt join forces with the Chechens. In terms of the Ukraine it's not a wealthy country and the Chernobyl ares in the North is not even habitable, although it is important to both Russian and the EU, with around 85% of Russian gas delivered to Western Europe being piped through Ukraine.
Why would Russia invade and see trade sanctions put in place and a boycott of the 2018 World Cup. The Russians wouldn't gain anything financially from invading, indeed their army would become a target for rebel groups who would not doubt join forces with the Chechens. In terms of the Ukraine it's not a wealthy country and the Chernobyl ares in the North is not even habitable, although it is important to both Russian and the EU, with around 85% of Russian gas delivered to Western Europe being piped through Ukraine.
Many wars have been fought and nations occupied solely to protect a nation's trade and delivery routes.
EU doesn't want Ukraine. Ukraine is Greece on steroids.
Russia has a connected money pump through Ukraine to the EU. They definitely want it.
There is no common unity in Ukraine. Three months from now the UN will be begging Russia to go in and restore order.
Why would Russia invade and see trade sanctions put in place and a boycott of the 2018 World Cup. The Russians wouldn't gain anything financially from invading, indeed their army would become a target for rebel groups who would not doubt join forces with the Chechens. In terms of the Ukraine it's not a wealthy country and the Chernobyl ares in the North is not even habitable, although it is important to both Russian and the EU, with around 85% of Russian gas delivered to Western Europe being piped through Ukraine.
The Russians will throw Assad under the bus for the Black Sea.
US Will establish a NFW in Syria which Russia will ignore in exchange for control of the Crimean.
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