Yes, but according to Brittanica, "It was not until the end of the 18th century that modern literary Ukrainian emerged out of the colloquial Ukrainian tongue. " In other words, no Ukrainian Chaucer. No Ukrainian Shakespeare, etc.

Also, Britannica points out that Ukrainian "is closely related to Russian and Belarusian, from which it was indistinguishable until the 12th or 13th century. "

English of course has no such common root with any of the three major influences that created it (Angles, Saxons, Normans).

Ukraine, as a country, could be defined as that Western part of Ukraine, mostly described as "Galicia", where Ukraine was spoken, and Catholicism was practised. This was the area that gave rise to the Ukrainian Nationalist movement in the 20th century; this was the area that gave rise to the UPA and OUN. That is why Hitler agreed to have only ONE Waffen SS Division, the "First Galizien", based around Lemberg/Lviv, because he considered thise Ukrainians to be Aryan, and everything West of Galicia to be Russian and thus "slavic" and "Untermenschen".

Indeed, this belief of Hitler's continues to inform the worldview of Ukrainian Nazi groups like Azov. That is why the nationalist battalions had no problem attacking and murdering so many “Eastern” Ukrainians in the Donbas starting in 2014.

We should also note that this area was never part of the Russian Empire, but was rather conquered by the Poles, Slovaks and Germans.