About Ukraine

Are Americans so ignorant to justify the publication of such an article?

(OK, I must admit, I had never heard of Mykola Lysenko before.)

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EDIT: it seems this post is getting misunderstood, because I tried (and apparently failed) to shorten the following interrogation.

1. The Washington Post is an American newspaper.

2. The article explains a situation by giving a basic history lesson, and does not contain any new or exclusive information.

3. The title of the article, and the four first questions, are clearly aimed at people who ignore most about Ukraine, including its very existence.

So the target audience is: Americans who do not know anything about Ukraine. My initial assumption would be that this is a small group. However, the average weekday circulation of The Washington Post is above 400,000.

Summing up, it looks like some editors at The Washington Post believe that a lot of Americans are ignorant of facts about Ukraine, possibly including the very existence of a country called Ukraine. In my opinion, such a belief is questionable, hence my original interrogation.

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To go further, I believe that another article could have been written, with all the interesting information from this one, and without the obvious in-case-you-are-not-aware-of-Ukraine part.

I also believe that an equivalent event would not be published in an equivalent newspaper in France, Spain, or The Netherlands. This is why I am wondering whether that kind of articles is specific to American newspapers.

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This all started with me having a question. Despite all the downvotes, I am happy about all the answers that help me better understand American press.

I think because the large majority of the wealth is in the south-eastern Russian-speaking section. From the article, it sounds like that is where all the coal and iron mines are. Not to mention the most productive farmland.

The Russian-speaking section also encompasses the major ports of Odessa and Sevastopol.

So a split down language lines would leave the Ukrainian segment landlocked and with a vastly weakened economy.

I guess you refer to "1. What is Ukraine? Ukraine – not "the Ukraine."

Whoever got stuck there will miss the rest of the article which is quite good. If you actually got stuck there, please avoid claiming what others are.

Disclaimer: not an American.

So even the Washington Post has decided to adopt Upworthy-like titles, I guess that's the sad future of online news.