Ukraine vs The Ukraine

[W Brewer]

This morning, CNN interview with a Ukrainian official (foreign minister?):
Interviewing reporter says <Crimea>. The Ukrainian official says <the
Crimea>.
     WB learned a set of place names in elementary school geography class
in the '50s; this set of place names included a prefixed <the>. WB recalls
reporting Angst to Linguist List upon hearing a BBC news reader dropping
<the> from <the Ukraine>, maybe twenty years ago. WB was instructed that
<the> was a relic of colonialism, and had to be eliminated, end of
discussion. WB is still loath to give up the <the>, because that is what he
grew up with, and you'll have to pry it from my cold, dead mouth.

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