We are all Slave now.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

It's not a function of British colonialism but it is a question of English usage. In French, for example, countries commonly have the definite article before them: l'Ukraine, la Russie, la Chine. So there's no pejorative implications to referring to l'Ukraine as there is when you refer to the Ukraine in English, which implicitly demotes it from nation-state to component of something larger.

TM