While this is true, the word 'Ukraine' comes from a Slavic word for 'border' or 'region', so using 'the' in front of it makes sense when you consider the original meaning of the name and how English is spoken. All my Canadian-Ukrainian relatives say 'the Ukraine', even though as the proper name of a country you should just say 'Ukraine'.

There used to be. I didn't realise till I just looked it up ( http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/ukraine.html ) that they had officially dropped the 'the' after 1990, I thought either was correct.