Ukraine has tried to set the record straight amid becoming embroiled in an international scandal spurred by its leader’s phone call with President Trump: It’s not “the Ukraine.”
The Ukrainian Embassy in D.C. took to Twitter over the weekend to remind the public about how to properly say and spell the name of the country and its capital.
“Let us kindly help you to use the words related to #Ukraine correctly,” the embassy tweeted Sunday, adding that it’s “Ukraine, not ’the’ Ukraine,” and “Kyiv, not Kiev.”
“These are the only politically correct terms that express respect to the country and its nation,” the Ukrainian Embassy tweeted. “Be smart and avoid Soviet style clichés.”
A former member of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, Ukraine has found itself the center of an American political scandal after revelations emerged last month after a July phone call involving President Trump and his counterpart in Kyiv, Volodymyr Zelensky. During the conversation, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Zelensky to investigate 2020 Democratic presidential front-runner Joseph R. Biden, the former vice president, and his son Hunter.
The House of Representatives launched a formal impeachment inquiry after the White House tried at first to block the release of a related whistleblower complaint filed by an unknown member of the U.S. intelligence community, but then released its own transcript of the call.
Mr. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.
Americans including Mr. Trump have subsequently referred to the country in recent days as “the Ukraine,” using an outdated construction the nation has tried to drop since the fall of the Soviet Union.
“Ukraine is a country,” William Taylor, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009, told TIME after former President Barack Obama made the same mistake 2014. “The Ukraine is the way the Russians referred to that part of the country during Soviet times. … Now that it is a country, a nation, and a recognized state, it is just Ukraine. And it is incorrect to refer to the Ukraine, even though a lot of people do it.”
Mr. Trump said Monday on Twitter that “the President of the Ukraine” said that he did not feel pressured by Mr. Trump during the July phone call. He deleted the tweet minutes later and reposted it without the “the,” Politico reported.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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