Times change, you know. Now Ukraine, which as a matter of fact is my native country, is independent and there’s no reason why you should refer to it using a definite article. And about your phrase that “why should smb tell the Americans etc. how to refer to a country”, you can still use “the Ukraine” if you are an ignorant person and don’t care much about the feelings of others. Anyway, choose whatever you like, it’s just that I don’t understand some people who are stubborn enough (or incapable) of learning a new name!

Certainly it was always ‘the Ukraine’ for some reason… Another mystery. I still find it rather strange that Ukraine has decided that it’s belittling to be called ‘the Ukraine’ and so has changed it’s name.

But what really amazes me is the following: How can a country tell the English, Americans, Australians etc. how to pronounce it’s name or what to call it.

Is it logical that China can tell the English-speakers what to call Peking/Beijing, but they don’t bother telling Russians what they should call it, so they can continue to use Peking… I think people would laugh if the English decided that they didn’t like the characters that were being used for certain English towns and so felt the need to tell the Chinese how to speak their own language.

Singular nouns in English are most often used with an article or a pronoun. I can’t think of a situation where I would refer to “kingdom.” A person might refer to “a kingdom” or “the kingdom” or “his kingdom,” but never just “kingdom.”

Here in the USA, we refer to regions such as the Midwest or the South. I suspect the same follows in other English-speaking countries.