This is, of course, of far less important than the actual military invasion Russia has launched in Ukraine, but it’s come up a few times now in group texts, so I looked it up.
Per Wikipedia, Ukraine’s government itself began pushing the English-speaking world to begin spelling Kyiv as Kyiv, and not Kiev, in 2018. Kyiv is evidently derived from the Ukrainian word for the city (where the first syllable is emphasized), while Kiev is derived from the Russian word (where the second syllable is emphasized). Poking around, it sounds like Ukraine would also like to be referred to as “Ukraine” rather than “the Ukraine,” again due to a desire to distinguish its independence from its Russian past—an independence that will hopefully persevere for years and years to come.
Helpful, but also not helpful because I can’t actually say it correctly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE1f6GUvG5Y