From the 18th century on, Ukraine became known in the Russian Empire by the geographic term Little Russia. In the 1830s, Mykola Kostomarov and his Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Kyiv started to use the name Ukrainians.

"This name is stated in the Ukrainian Declaration of Independence and Constitution." The use of the article relates to the time before independence in 1991, when Ukraine was a republic of the Soviet Union known as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, she says. Since then, it should be merely Ukraine.

Ukraine has long played an important, yet sometimes overlooked, role in the global security order. Today, the country is on the front lines of a renewed great-power rivalry that many analysts say will dominate international relations in the decades ahead.

CBC has been using a transliteration based on the Ukrainian spelling of the name: "Kyiv" (pronounced "KEE-ef"). The Russian version is "Kiev" (pronounced "kee-EV").