Embassy begs public

Ukrainian Embassy begs public to stop using 'the Ukraine' after latest Trump flub

By CAITLIN OPRYSKO

The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington on Monday cheekily implored the public to stop using "the Ukraine," a request that came after President Donald Trump repeatedly used the outdated construction.

“Let us kindly help you to use the words related to #Ukraine correctly,” Ukraine’s Embassy in the U.S. tweeted, noting that the country goes by “Ukraine, not ‘the’ Ukraine” and that its capital city should be spelled “Kyiv, not Kiev.”

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As the maelstrom surrounding Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has grown over the past week and a half, resulting in the start of impeachment proceedings, “the Ukraine” has found itself back in the news. While Trump is guilty of using the construction, he is far from the only public figure to have appended the definite article.

The construction of Ukraine’s name has been politically fraught for years, as evidenced by the cheeky tone of the embassy’s tweet.

"These are the only politically correct terms that express respect to the country and its nation," the embassy wrote, advising readers to "be smart and avoid Soviet style clichés." The tweet closed with an emoji of a skeptical-looking person wearing a monocle.

That construction has also cropped up in media reports surrounding the allegations that Trump inappropriately pressured Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, though The Associated Press, whose style guidelines have been adopted by a number of news outlets, dropped the definite article in 1991, in accordance with Ukraine's independence referendum that same year. Critics of the use of "the Ukraine" argue it belittles the country's status as a sovereign state, reducing it to its status as a former Soviet territory.

Some news outlets use “the Ukraine” frequently, as then-President Barack Obama occasionally did in the aftermath of Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

Amid sparring with reporters during his trip last week to the United Nations, Trump also parroted unsubstantiated claims about the Bidens and their work in “the Ukraine.”

But Monday's reminder from the Ukrainian Embassy came shortly after a morning tweet from the man whose presidency has been dealt a major blow by his relations with Ukraine.

Trump, who frequently deletes and reposts messages on his favorite social media platform, deleted a declaration that “Again, the President of the Ukraine said THERE WAS NO (ZERO) PRESSURE PUT ON HIM BY ME,” reposting it minutes later without the “the.”