I did spend the second half of 2019 in Kiev on a "technical mission" sponsored by USAID. It became obvious that it would be politically correct to stick to the Ukrainian representations of everything ("Kyiv," for example) and that we would replace "the Ukraine" (roughly, "the Borderlands") with straight up "Ukraine." But, excising the definite particle "the" does take away a whispered hint about the historical place and experience of ... the Ukraine in that much traversed neighborhood.
I did spend the second half of 2019 in Kiev on a "technical mission" sponsored by USAID. It became obvious that it would be politically correct to stick to the Ukrainian representations of everything ("Kyiv," for example) and that we would replace "the Ukraine" (roughly, "the Borderlands") with straight up "Ukraine." But, excising the definite particle "the" does take away a whispered hint about the historical place and experience of ... the Ukraine in that much traversed neighborhood.