Ukraine vs Russia

Why people mix them up

Ukraine and Russia are neighbours with a long shared border and a shared past as republics of the Soviet Union. Both languages are East Slavic and written in Cyrillic, so they can look alike to outsiders, and the two countries frequently appear together in the news. People therefore often search how they differ, how large each one is, and how to tell the languages and flags apart.

How to tell them apart

• Russia is the largest country in the world, spanning Eastern Europe and northern Asia; Ukraine lies entirely in Europe and is the largest country located wholly on the continent.
• Ukraine's flag has two horizontal stripes, blue over yellow; Russia's has three, white, blue and red.
• The capitals are Kyiv (Ukraine) and Moscow (Russia). Kyiv stands on the Dnipro River.
• The alphabets differ in a few letters: Ukrainian uses і, ї, є and ґ, while Russian uses ы, э and ъ, which Ukrainian does not.
• The currencies are the hryvnia (Ukraine) and the rouble (Russia).
• Ukraine's coast is on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov; Russia also has coasts on the Baltic, the Arctic Ocean and the Pacific.

Memory hook

Ukraine's flag is a blue sky over a yellow wheat field. If you see a letter ї with two dots, the text is Ukrainian.

On the map

Find the Black Sea. The large country along its northern shore, bordering Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova to the west, is Ukraine. Russia is the enormous country to its north and east that continues across the whole of northern Asia to the Pacific. If the country you are tapping stretches beyond the Ural Mountains, it is Russia.