Do not precede Ukraine with the. The country’s name is believed to stem from an old Slavic word meaning borderland. As with other countries whose names indicate a physical location, historical usage has dictated that the country’s name be prefixed with the (as in the Netherlands). However, since gaining independence in 1991, and especially since the 2022 Russian invasion, calling the country the Ukraine has been seen as grammatically incorrect and politically insulting, as it implies that Ukraine is not an independent country but the borderlands of Russia.