I've been doing a lot of following along and what I've learned is there are bad guys and huge corruption elements among both the opposition and the government.

And yeah, it's not "THE" Ukraine. It's Ukraine and ANYONE knowing the slightest thing would not make that mistake.

"The Ukraine" is still the geographic territory--the Donbas and Krym aren't part of it. (And we still use "the" for "the Donbas" and, in full-English mode, "the Crimea".)

"The Ukraine" used to be the country, as well, until some in the '90s decided two things. First, they didn't use the article very well in English--any more than I have a perfect grasp of Russian (or Ukrainian) aspect. Second, and to the Anglosphere more important, most country names are anarthrous. Now that "the Ukraine" was a country and not a province or territory it was a respect thing, being one of the pack.

The "the" had been dropping for a while in country names, but by virtue of internally shifting norms and not externally imposed norms. Used to be "the Jordan," "the Ukraine," "the Congo," "the Gambia". We still use it for some countries that are coextensive with geography. "The Maldives" haven't raised a sufficient "we demand you change your language to show us the dignity we merit" stink yet with the obligatory call for language re-education camps. Same for the Comoros and a few other smallish places. We still do use the definite article for countries that have common nouns in their title. E.g., "the Kingdom of ..." or "the Islamic Republic of ...". I've heard people try to go all anarthrous with some of those and it rankles.

So for the first 30 years of my life, even while in grad school and having learned a bit of Ukrainian, I said "the Ukraine." And my Ukrainian-language textbook translated "Ukrain" as "the Ukraine". Sometimes I slip.

And sometimes I do it because I dislike being ordered by non-native speakers to speak English "correctly." Especially when lectured on article use by speakers of a language that lacks articles of any kind, definite or indefinite. It's not just article usage: I put up with a few long-embedded adjectives that show gender in English but reject attempts to impose new ones. So "naif/naive, blond/blonde, brunet/brunette" I'm stuck with, but I reject "Latino/Latina" (and even worse attempts to require that adjectives show number).

That's different from being not be someone who knows the slightest thing.