Western + Eastern Ukraine + Crimea was a country from 1991-2014.
Western Ukraine was part of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth until the final partition of Poland, then it was part of Austria until 1919, it was part of Poland again until 1939, part of the USSR until 1991.
I have a relative whose grandparents came to the US from there in 1910. The woman from Lviv listed her nationality as “Austrian”, the man from Kiev listed his nationality as “Russian”.
This “centuries of Ukraine as a state” is nonsense.
“Settlement by modern humans in Ukraine and its vicinity dates back to 32,000 BC, with evidence of the Gravettian culture in the Crimean Mountains.[29][30] By 4,500 BC, the Neolithic Cucuteni–Trypillia culture was flourishing in wide areas of modern Ukraine, including Trypillia and the entire Dnieper-Dniester region. Ukraine is also considered to be the likely location of the first domestication of the horse.[31][32][33][34] The Kurgan hypothesis places the Volga-Dnieper region of Ukraine and southern Russia as the urheimat of the Proto-Indo-Europeans.[35] Early Indo-European migrations from the Pontic steppes in the 3rd millennium BC spread Yamnaya Steppe pastoralist ancestry and Indo-European languages across large parts of Europe.[36] During the Iron Age, the land was inhabited by Iranian-speaking Cimmerians, Scythians, and Sarmatians.[37] Between 700 BC and 200 BC it was part of the Scythian kingdom.”
This “centuries of Ukraine as a state” is nonsense.
How long have Alaska and Hawaii been states? They became states after many FReepers were born and you know it. So spare us the condescending lecture on a Ukrainian identity and state that far predates our own.