Mary, if two varieties are indeed different enough and are not parts of a dialect continuum, I see how appearance of state border (or some other politiacal events) may influence what they call them. But I'm not sure I'd be glad. What if that was a music genre? Should we suddently call what musicians from two lands considered a single genre two different names when two lands gain indepnedence? Just by virtue of different citizenship of musicians? Or what about geography - if steppes of country A are perceptibly different from spepps of B - should we find a new name for stppes of B in accordance with geographical borders as long as A and B separate? I find this highly suspicious. But I understand that when people speak a langauge, their will to call it 'a language' can be taken into account. To some extent. I just don't wnat to make it a _rule_,, don't wnat to become myself one of thiose people.

La Spagna e la Lingua è il dialetto della Lingua Italiana?

Couldn't pass by. Aside from linguistic aspects I think the main point here is that Russia and Ukraine are separate countries, so if they name their language by country and languages have differences than we should consider them separate. Dialects are mostly for differences in language inside one country until they are considered to be different.

Amitoria, please, don't speak for all Ukrainian people) You just misinterpreted this linguistical discussion

Yes, you can consider Ukrainian as a dialect of Russian. But don't tell this to Ukrainian people, because they think its language is unique :)