Belarus–Ukraine relations
Belarus–Ukraine relations (, "Byelaruska-ŭkrainskiya adnosiny", , "Ukrains'ko-Bilorus'ki vidnosyny", , "Belorussko-ukrainskiye otnosheniya") are foreign relations between Belarus and Ukraine. Both countries were successively ruled by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Second Polish Republic, and ultimately, the Russian Empire. Prior to the 1991 breakup, both countries were part of the Soviet Union as the Belarusian SSR and Ukrainian SSR when they were the founding members of the United Nations in 1945. Being Slavic nations, both Belarus and Ukraine share closely related cultures and are predominantly inhabited by the East Slavic ethnic groups of Belarusians and Ukrainians respectively, along with a few Russians. Today, the two countries share an 891–km border.
Rusyns
Of the estimated 1.2 million people of Rusyn origins, as few as 90,000 individuals have been officially identified as such, in recent national censuses (see infobox above). This is due, in part, to the refusal of some governments to count Rusyns and/or allow them to self-identify on census forms, especially in Ukraine. The ethnic classification of Rusyns as a separate East Slavic ethnicity distinct from Russians, Ukrainians, or Belarusians is, however, politically controversial. The majority of scholarship on the topic considers Rusyns to be an ethnic subgroup of the Ukrainian people. This is disputed by some non-mainstream scholars and some other scholars from Czechia, Slovakia, Canada and America. According to the 2001 Ukrainian Census about a third of Rusyns in Ukraine speak the Ukrainian language, while others stick to their native form.