It's accurate it's an old Soviet mind game to put Ukrainians in their place. It's the same for Kyiv, in Russian it's Kiev. It's not the same as "The X country" there's a deeper history to it. In Ukraine their language doesn't even have the equivalent of "the".

Russian doesn’t have the definite article either, right? So it can’t be a Soviet mind game. In fact “the Ukraine” was common throughout the 19th century (check ngrams.google.com).

I intend to continue saying “Kiev”. I also pronounce the S in Paris. I don’t like the trend that a country’s rulers are allowed to tell us all how to pronounce/spell its name.

Slava Ukraini!

Deeper history aside, obviously no one has any negative intention in saying it in their comments. Everyone knows what they mean. It’s flatly unhelpful to go around constantly correcting people.

Nobody said there was a negative intention. Instead, somebody asked somebody else to edit a post. "Hey, I didn't know that bothered people. I'll change it." That's an easy response that makes the world a better place in a small way.

Humans aren't machines that treat all things the same way. Context is real and matters.

They refer to larger groups. You wouldn’t say The America, or The England. It’s the same here.