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Added plenty of information of the name, which meaning is a topic if debate.
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'''Ukraine''', or '''Borderlands''' is the name given to the territories of Eastern [[Europe]]. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) was a former constituent republic of the [[Soviet Union]]. Its administrative center is [[Kiev]]. The territories border [[Belarus]], [[Poland]], [[Slovakia]], [[Hungary]], [[Romania]], [[Moldova]] and the [[Russian Federation]]. Recent research by [[nationalist]] scholars claim the Cossack Hetmanate [[state]] occupied similar borders during the 1600s and 1700s during which some referred to it as Sloboda Ukraine.<ref>Kryzhanivsky, S.A.; Hajda, L.A.; Yerofeyev, I.A.; Zasenko, O.E.; et. al. (2025, July 17). "[https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/The-autonomous-hetman-state-and-Sloboda-Ukraine The Autonomous Hetman State and Sloboda Ukraine.]" ''Encyclopædia Britannica.''</ref> The current [[Ukrainian regime]] officially claims to be the only "racially pure" legitimate successor to the [[Kievan Rus]], viewing ethnic [[Russian]]s as [[subhuman]] [[Asia]]tic hordes.
'''Ukraine''' is a country in Eastern [[Europe]]. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) was a former constituent republic of the [[Soviet Union]]. Its administrative center is [[Kiev]]. The territories border [[Belarus]], [[Poland]], [[Slovakia]], [[Hungary]], [[Romania]], [[Moldova]] and the [[Russian Federation]]. Recent research by [[nationalist]] scholars claim the Cossack Hetmanate [[state]] occupied similar borders during the 1600s and 1700s during which some referred to it as Sloboda Ukraine.<ref>Kryzhanivsky, S.A.; Hajda, L.A.; Yerofeyev, I.A.; Zasenko, O.E.; et. al. (2025, July 17). "[https://www.britannica.com/place/Ukraine/The-autonomous-hetman-state-and-Sloboda-Ukraine The Autonomous Hetman State and Sloboda Ukraine.]" ''Encyclopædia Britannica.''</ref> The current [[Ukrainian regime]] officially claims to be the only "racially pure" legitimate successor to the [[Kievan Rus]], viewing ethnic [[Russian]]s as [[subhuman]] [[Asia]]tic hordes. According to the Historian Kathryn David: "The Catholic presence in Lviv is not simply a historical curiosity. The [[Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church]] has played an outsized role not just in the local culture, but in the creation of the Ukrainian nation".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/breach|title=Into the Breach - The role of Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Church|date=January 18, 2023|website=Commonweal Magazine}}</ref>
It was artificially carved out of the [[Russian Empire]] by the [[Bolsheviks]] as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1922<ref>[https://davidstockman.substack.com/p/the-ukrainian-border-war-folly The Ukrainian Border War Folly], [[David Stockman]], June 17, 2024. "The only time the borders of Ukraine have been redrawn at the barrel of a gun is when Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev did it between 1922 and 1954. That’s right, this [[Ursula von der Leyen|bureaucratic half-wit]] wants to embroil the world in [[WWIII]] in order to enforce borders drawn by a trio if history’s most blood-thirsty [[tyrant]]s." davidstockman.substack.com</ref> having the precedent of the Ukrainian People's Republic claims which were rejected at the [[Paris Peace Conference]] (1918-20) by the victorious powers after WWI,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://shs.cairn.info/journal-materiaux-pour-l-histoire-de-notre-temps-2014-1-page-180?lang=en|title=Identification, Legitimation, and Stigmatization: The Ukrainian Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference (1918-20) through its Written Materials|author=Thomas Chopard|quote=In late 1918, a struggle was taking place on the Ukrainian territory of the former Russian empire, between the Soviet authorities, White Russian nationalists, and partisans of Ukrainian independence, over the reconfiguration and control of the state. At the same time, the Ukrainian People’s Republic decided to send a delegation to the Paris Peace Conference (1918-1920), at which it had only observer status. The written documents produced on this occasion, of which the BDIC’s Klotz archive has a particularly significant collection, give an insight into the cognitive horizon of the Ukrainian pro-independence elite of the time.|date=January 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1919Parisv05/d79|title=Notes of a Meeting Held at President Wilson’s House in the Place des Etats-Unis, Paris, at 4:15 p.m. on Wednesday, May 21, 1919|publisher=Office of the Historian|date=May 21, 1919}}</ref> or the short-lived monarchist anti-Bolshevik and defeated pro-[[Central Powers]] Hetmanat, Atamanat or Ukrainian State from 1918 with substantially different borders.<ref name=Hetmanat/> Its borders from 1922 to 2014 were drawn by [[Soviet]] [[dictator]]s [[Vladimir Lenin]], [[Joseph Stalin]], and [[Nikita Khruschev]] without the [[democracy|democratic]] consent of the inhabitants' resident there. Ukraine's territories were taken from neighbouring countries by the [[communist]] [[dictator]]s. While the Ukrainophile view of history talks about the [[Kievan Rus]]' as the precedent of Ukraine as a state, the Russophile view rejects it (view the [[#Historiography|historiography section]]), thus the existence of Ukraine as a separate entity inside the USSR is sometimes referred to as the "Lenin's mistake" by the latter. [[American foreign policy]] since 1991 has been to uphold the illegal, arbitrary and undemocratic decrees of Soviet dictators.
It was artificially carved out of the [[Russian Empire]] by the [[Bolsheviks]] as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1922<ref>[https://davidstockman.substack.com/p/the-ukrainian-border-war-folly The Ukrainian Border War Folly], [[David Stockman]], June 17, 2024. "The only time the borders of Ukraine have been redrawn at the barrel of a gun is when Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev did it between 1922 and 1954. That’s right, this [[Ursula von der Leyen|bureaucratic half-wit]] wants to embroil the world in [[WWIII]] in order to enforce borders drawn by a trio if history’s most blood-thirsty [[tyrant]]s." davidstockman.substack.com</ref> having the precedent of the Ukrainian People's Republic claims which were rejected at the [[Paris Peace Conference]] (1918-20) by the victorious powers after WWI,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://shs.cairn.info/journal-materiaux-pour-l-histoire-de-notre-temps-2014-1-page-180?lang=en|title=Identification, Legitimation, and Stigmatization: The Ukrainian Delegation to the Paris Peace Conference (1918-20) through its Written Materials|author=Thomas Chopard|quote=In late 1918, a struggle was taking place on the Ukrainian territory of the former Russian empire, between the Soviet authorities, White Russian nationalists, and partisans of Ukrainian independence, over the reconfiguration and control of the state. At the same time, the Ukrainian People’s Republic decided to send a delegation to the Paris Peace Conference (1918-1920), at which it had only observer status. The written documents produced on this occasion, of which the BDIC’s Klotz archive has a particularly significant collection, give an insight into the cognitive horizon of the Ukrainian pro-independence elite of the time.|date=January 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1919Parisv05/d79|title=Notes of a Meeting Held at President Wilson’s House in the Place des Etats-Unis, Paris, at 4:15 p.m. on Wednesday, May 21, 1919|publisher=Office of the Historian|date=May 21, 1919}}</ref> or the short-lived monarchist anti-Bolshevik and defeated pro-[[Central Powers]] Hetmanat, Atamanat or Ukrainian State from 1918 with substantially different borders.<ref name=Hetmanat/> Its borders from 1922 to 2014 were drawn by [[Soviet]] [[dictator]]s [[Vladimir Lenin]], [[Joseph Stalin]], and [[Nikita Khruschev]] without the [[democracy|democratic]] consent of the inhabitants' resident there. Ukraine's territories were taken from neighbouring countries by the [[communist]] [[dictator]]s. While the Ukrainophile view of history talks about the [[Kievan Rus]]' as the precedent of Ukraine as a state, the Russophile view rejects it (view the [[#Historiography|historiography section]]), thus the existence of Ukraine as a separate entity inside the USSR is sometimes referred to as the "Lenin's mistake" by the latter. [[American foreign policy]] since 1991 has been to uphold the illegal, arbitrary and undemocratic decrees of Soviet dictators. The Historian Hryhoriy Pivtorak claims that: "On 22 October 1721, Peter I renamed his state Tsardom of Moscow to the Russian Empire and its inhabitants Muscovites to Russians".<ref>{{cite book|title=Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians: Three Peoples, Three Paths|author=Hryhoriy Pivtorak|date=2025|url=https://shron1.chtyvo.org.ua/Pivtorak_Hryhorii/UkrainiansBelarusiansRussiansThreePeoplesThreePaths_anhl.pdf?PHPSESSID=9prdav18tpl6m8v1p8f7317351|page=7}}</ref>
Critics regard it as a failed state and puppet regime<ref>When a [[nation state]] cannot pay for its own defense in money or manpower, it has lost its independence and [[sovereignty]], and is commonly referred to as a "stooge state" or "puppet regime."</ref> since coming under the tutelage of [[NATO]] and the [[United States]] in an illegal [[coup]] in 2014. In 2015 it was rated as the most [[corrupt]] government in [[Europe]] due to corruption from Yanukovych holdovers; former President Yanukovych now being sheltered from accountability in Russia.<ref>Bullough, O. (2015, February 6). "[https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/04/welcome-to-the-most-corrupt-nation-in-europe-ukraine Welcome to Ukraine, the Most Corrupt Nation in Europe.]" ''The Guardian.''</ref> After the [[violent]] [[coup]] organized, financed, and supported by the [[Obama/Biden administration]] in 2014, the Ukrainian regime became openly [[fascist]] and [[xenophobic]]. On the first day after the coup, the [[CIA]] and [[MI6]] formed a partnership with the [[intelligence agencies]] in Ukraine, which were rebuilt from scratch to be used as a partner against [[Russia]].<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/world/europe/cia-ukraine-intelligence-russia-war.html The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin], Feb 2 1015, ''[[The New York Times]]''.</ref> As late as 2020, the UK Counter Terrorism Policing agency listed the Ukrainian Trident, the country's official coat of arms, next to the [[swastika]] as "symbols commonly associated with [[white supremacy]]" since Neonazis have used the symbol.<ref name=AntiTerror>[https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-51174898 Ukraine coat of arms in UK anti-terror list furore], By Georgina Rannard, [[BBC News]], 21 January 2020.</ref> Ukraine uses the symbol in reference to its historical kinship with Kievan Rus' which used it as Coat of Arms and in the coins which have been found by archeologists.<ref name=KievanRusCoins>[https://www.cointalk.com/threads/coins-of-the-kievan-rus.394099/ Coins of the Kievan Rus]</ref> Ukraine is one of Europe's most notorious human and child trafficing centers.<ref>[https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-human-traffciking-416319 Ukraine's Shame: An Epidemic of Human Trafficking], LUKE A. DRABYN, ''Newsweek'', 1/16/16.</ref>
Critics regard it as a failed state and puppet regime<ref>When a [[nation state]] cannot pay for its own defense in money or manpower, it has lost its independence and [[sovereignty]], and is commonly referred to as a "stooge state" or "puppet regime."</ref> since coming under the tutelage of [[NATO]] and the [[United States]] in an illegal [[coup]] in 2014. In 2015 it was rated as the most [[corrupt]] government in [[Europe]] due to corruption from Yanukovych holdovers; former President Yanukovych now being sheltered from accountability in Russia.<ref>Bullough, O. (2015, February 6). "[https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/04/welcome-to-the-most-corrupt-nation-in-europe-ukraine Welcome to Ukraine, the Most Corrupt Nation in Europe.]" ''The Guardian.''</ref> After the [[violent]] [[coup]] organized, financed, and supported by the [[Obama/Biden administration]] in 2014, the Ukrainian regime became openly [[fascist]] and [[xenophobic]]. On the first day after the coup, the [[CIA]] and [[MI6]] formed a partnership with the [[intelligence agencies]] in Ukraine, which were rebuilt from scratch to be used as a partner against [[Russia]].<ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/world/europe/cia-ukraine-intelligence-russia-war.html The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin], Feb 2 1015, ''[[The New York Times]]''.</ref> As late as 2020, the UK Counter Terrorism Policing agency listed the Ukrainian Trident, the country's official coat of arms, next to the [[swastika]] as "symbols commonly associated with [[white supremacy]]" since Neonazis have used the symbol.<ref name=AntiTerror>[https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-51174898 Ukraine coat of arms in UK anti-terror list furore], By Georgina Rannard, [[BBC News]], 21 January 2020.</ref> Ukraine uses the symbol in reference to its historical kinship with Kievan Rus' which used it as Coat of Arms and in the coins which have been found by archeologists.<ref name=KievanRusCoins>[https://www.cointalk.com/threads/coins-of-the-kievan-rus.394099/ Coins of the Kievan Rus]</ref> Ukraine is one of Europe's most notorious human and child trafficing centers.<ref>[https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-human-traffciking-416319 Ukraine's Shame: An Epidemic of Human Trafficking], LUKE A. DRABYN, ''Newsweek'', 1/16/16.</ref>
==Etymology==
==Etymology==
Historians and linguists in the 19–20th centuries explained the term "Ukraina" in the sense ‘borderland, frontier region, outskirts, marches’ etc. These meanings can be derived from the Proto-Slavic noun *krajь, meaning ‘edge, border’. Contemporary parallels for this are Russian okráina ‘outskirts’<ref>[https://www.google.com/search?q=google+traqnslate&sca_esv=63bae64319b805ad&sxsrf=ADLYWIKR4S1fgB0HxLn6X0pj3qCcvqY6TA%3A1725932233846&source=hp&ei=yaLfZpTeMKac0PEPz5KE6AU&iflsig=AL9hbdgAAAAAZt-w2fuN0BpX5ehOSPnn5PVC730m5EDa&ved=0ahUKEwjU5s7NnreIAxUmDjQIHU8JAV0Q4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=google+traqnslate&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6IhFnb29nbGUgdHJhcW5zbGF0ZTINEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEYCjINEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEYCjIHEAAYgAQYCjINEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEYCjIHEAAYgAQYCjINEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEYCjINEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEYCjINEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEYCjINEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEYCjINEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEYCkiLalCXTVj0ZHABeACQAQCYAXKgAe0LqgEEMTQuM7gBA8gBAPgBAZgCEqAC5QyoAgvCAgYQswEYhQTCAhAQLhgDGOUCGOoCGIwDGI8BwgIQEAAYAxjlAhjqAhiMAxiPAcICCxAAGIAEGLEDGIMBwgIREC4YgAQYsQMY0QMYgwEYxwHCAgUQABiABMICCBAAGIAEGLEDwgIKEAAYgAQYsQMYCsICEBAAGIAEGLEDGIMBGIoFGAqYAxSSBwQxMi42oAf-gQE&sclient=gws-wiz Google Translate] outskirts = okraina (''окраина'').</ref> and kraj ‘border district’ and Polish, u kraya, meaning ‘borderlands’.
According to the Historian Serhii Plokhy, "The word “Ukraine,” which today is used to define an independent country in the middle of Europe, has medieval origins and was first used by the Kyivan chroniclers of the twelfth century to define the areas of today’s Ukraine bordering on the Pontic steppes. In the second half of the seventeenth century the term “Ukraine” entered the international vocabulary as one of the names of the Cossack polity created in the course of the Khmelnytsky Uprising (1648–
57). By that time, European geographers could already locate Ukraine on the maps produced by the French engineer and cartographer Guillaume Levasseur de Beauplan. His, however, was not the first depiction of Ukraine on a European map".<ref>{{cite book |last=Plokhy |first=Serhii |chapter=2. Placing Ukraine on the Map of Europe |title=The Frontline: Essays on Ukraine’s Past and Present |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2021 |pages=15-36 |doi=10.4159/9780674268852-005 |url=https://hwpi.harvard.edu/files/mapa/files/princescossaksarticle.pdf?m=1607093596}}</ref>
In the 1187 chronicle of the death of Prince Volodymyr Hlibovych of Pereyaslav the word appears: "And all the people of Pereyaslav wept for him... Ukraine tried hard for him".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://visitukraine.today/blog/4339/how-the-name-ukraine-appeared-history-and-myths#the-first-appearance-of-the-name-ukraine|title=How the name "Ukraine" appeared: history and myths|website=Visit Ukraine}}</ref>
The Radziwiłł map (early 17th century) is the first to explicitly label "Ukraine" (as "Outer Volhynia or Lower Dnieper") and mention "Cossacks," covering territories of modern Ukraine.
Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan's maps, including the 1648 "General Map of Ukraine" (Delineatio Generalis Camporum Desertorum vulgo Ukraina), depict Ukraine as a distinct region, influencing European cartography for centuries. Beauplan, a French engineer in Polish service, based it on surveys of Cossack lands.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.oldworldauctions.com/info/article/2022-03-Heart-of-Ukraine-in-Early-Maps|title=The Heart of Ukraine in Early Maps|website=Old World Auctions|author=Eliane}}</ref><ref>[https://archive.org/details/Ukrainae1 Old map of Ukraine : Tabula geographica Ukrainska by Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan]</ref>
According to a Harvard article made by Brian J. Boeck, the term "Ukraine" (Ukraïna) originally meant "borderland" or "frontier" and was used by Ukrainians, Russians, and Poles. In the 16th and 17th centuries, it came to refer to the Cossack lands of the Dnieper River basin. The ethnonym "Ukrainian" (ukraïnets') was used as a national name by only a small number of educated people in the 1840s. A century later, millions of people had adopted or acknowledged the name. Before its revitalization in the 1830s, ukraïnets' was a general term for frontiersmen and a regional name for residents of certain districts. The article states there is no evidence it was consistently used as a national name in the early modern period. The widespread adoption of the name ''Ukraina'' for the entire national territory and population began in the 1870s. The conscious adoption and promotion of ukraïnets' was an achievement of the national movement to replace a diversity of names.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Boeck |first=Brian J. |title=What's in a Name? Semantic Separation and the Rise of the Ukrainian National Name |journal=Harvard Ukrainian Studies |volume=27 |issue=1-4 |pages=33-65 |year=2004-2005 |url=https://www.husj.harvard.edu/articles/whats-in-a-name-semantic-separation-and-the-rise-of-the-ukrainian-national-name}}</ref>
Historians and linguists in the 19–20th centuries explained the term "Ukraina" in the sense ‘borderland, frontier region, outskirts, marches’ etc. These meanings can be derived from the Proto-Slavic noun *krajь, meaning ‘edge, border’. Contemporary parallels for this are Russian okráina ‘outskirts’<ref>[https://www.google.com/search?q=google+traqnslate&sca_esv=63bae64319b805ad&sxsrf=ADLYWIKR4S1fgB0HxLn6X0pj3qCcvqY6TA%3A1725932233846&source=hp&ei=yaLfZpTeMKac0PEPz5KE6AU&iflsig=AL9hbdgAAAAAZt-w2fuN0BpX5ehOSPnn5PVC730m5EDa&ved=0ahUKEwjU5s7NnreIAxUmDjQIHU8JAV0Q4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=google+traqnslate&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6IhFnb29nbGUgdHJhcW5zbGF0ZTINEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEYCjINEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEYCjIHEAAYgAQYCjINEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEYCjIHEAAYgAQYCjINEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEYCjINEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEYCjINEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEYCjINEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEYCjINEAAYgAQYsQMYgwEYCkiLalCXTVj0ZHABeACQAQCYAXKgAe0LqgEEMTQuM7gBA8gBAPgBAZgCEqAC5QyoAgvCAgYQswEYhQTCAhAQLhgDGOUCGOoCGIwDGI8BwgIQEAAYAxjlAhjqAhiMAxiPAcICCxAAGIAEGLEDGIMBwgIREC4YgAQYsQMY0QMYgwEYxwHCAgUQABiABMICCBAAGIAEGLEDwgIKEAAYgAQYsQMYCsICEBAAGIAEGLEDGIMBGIoFGAqYAxSSBwQxMi42oAf-gQE&sclient=gws-wiz Google Translate] outskirts = okraina (''окраина'').</ref> and kraj ‘border district’ and Polish, u kraya, meaning ‘borderlands’.
The historian Norman Davies adds: "The question ‘on the edge of what?’, however, sparks controversy. One answer, since the term first appears in mediaeval times when Ukraine lay within the Jagiellonian realms of Poland-Lithuania, would be: ‘the borderland of Poland-Lithuania’. Others might say that Ukraine was ‘the Edge of Christendom’ or possibly of civilised settlement before the endless steppe. Russians think that Ukraine is the borderland of Russia".<ref>{{cite web|urlhttps://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=56853|title=A short history of language in Ukraine|date=October 2, 2022|author=Norman Davies|website=Language Log
}}</ref>
In the Muscovy Principality between the 16th and 18th centuries the word ukraina/ukrayna sometimes referred to border regions of the tsar’s realm (similar to okrayina, “outskirts”), it also consistently referred to the Ukrainian lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth — territories far from Moscow’s frontiers. In fact, Muscovite documents often applied Ukraine to areas stretching from Chernihiv and Kyiv to Podilia, showing it denoted core Ukrainian territories, not just peripheries.
By the mid-17th century, during Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s uprising, Ukraine became the political-territorial name for the Cossack Hetmanate, used alongside "Rus’" and later even "Little Russia". Official Russian documents, including treaties and proclamations, referred to the Hetmanate as Ukraine, confirming its recognition as a distinct polity. Russian rulers themselves, from Tsar Michael to Peter I and Empress Elizabeth, employed the term in this sense, applying it to the Hetmanate and its people.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://localhistory.org.ua/texts/statti/ukrayina-ne-okrayina/|title=Україна – не окраїна. З історії назви Української держави|language=uk|website=Local History|author=Viktor Brekhunenko|date=April 26, 2022}}</ref>
Ukrainian scholars, such as Serhiy Shelukhin, Fedir Shevchenko, Hryhoriy Pivtorak and Mykola Andrusyak propose that the name is derived from Ukraina in the sense of ‘region, principality, country’. Many medieval occurrences of the word can be interpreted as having that meaning. In this sense, the word can be associated with contemporary Ukrainian krajina, Belarusian kraina and Russian and Polish kraj, all meaning ‘country’ (see Translations, 'region of land').<ref>[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14124601]</ref>
Ukrainian scholars, such as Serhiy Shelukhin, Fedir Shevchenko, Hryhoriy Pivtorak and Mykola Andrusyak propose that the name is derived from Ukraina in the sense of ‘region, principality, country’. Many medieval occurrences of the word can be interpreted as having that meaning. In this sense, the word can be associated with contemporary Ukrainian krajina, Belarusian kraina and Russian and Polish kraj, all meaning ‘country’ (see Translations, 'region of land').<ref>[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14124601]</ref>
Other Historians reject the notion of the word as "borderland" and link it to kraj/krajina (native land, country), and another view connects it to ukraïty (to cut off), meaning "a piece of land separated from the whole". Linguist V. Sklyarenko, is that Ukraina derives from kraj/krajina, but with a more complex development. In Old Slavic, kraj meant “piece of land,” and with the suffix -ina formed krajina (“territory, land belonging to a tribe”). From this, ukraj and later ukraina emerged as “a separated part of land/territory.” Over time, during the Kyivan Rus’ period, the meaning shifted: from “part of a tribal land” to “part of a principality,” and later simply “principality.” In medieval chronicles, different “ukrainas” referred to specific principalities (Pereyaslav, Galicia, Volhynia, Kyiv, etc.). According to them "ukraina" and "okrayina" were distinct words: the former meant a complete territorial unit, while the latter meant only a border area.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://litopys.org.ua/pivtorak/pivt12.htm|title=«Україна» — це не «окраїна»|language=uk|website=ІЗБОРНИК}}</ref>
==Geography==
==Geography==