I don't think I've ever heard someone say "Ukraine" in Australia. It sounds a bit unnatural to say with an Aussie accent. Just going to throw out some totally

I don't think I've ever heard someone say "Ukraine" in Australia. It sounds a bit unnatural to say with an Aussie accent. Just going to throw out some totally uneducated linguistics BS here that's just based on my own Aussie accent, but I think there's a tendency with Australian English to not emphasize long vowel affixes like 'yoo' as much (it's more like a sharper 'yu-'), and to blend them with the previous word if it's related. "the Ukraine" sounds very natural because it comes out like "thyu-crayne", whereas "in Ukraine" rolls off the tongue like 'inyu-crayne' which parses more like you're saying Emu Crane or something. Whereas if I put on an American accent (which might be totally inaccurate) it very clearly sounds like three syllables (in-you-creane) I feel like I have to make a very conscious effort to say 'Ukraine', which probably explains why it hasn't caught on here even though it's more standard everywhere else. This is one of the problems with trying to make language political btw. I very seriously doubt that any native Australian is saying 'the Ukraine' as some sort of pro-Russian sentiment.