Which one among the following countries does not share its territorial boundary with Ukraine?

Correct — C, Lithuania. Ukraine has exactly seven land neighbours and Lithuania is not one of them. Going clockwise from the north they are Belarus, Russia, then Moldova on the south-west, and Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland along the western frontier. Russia gives the longest boundary at about 2,063 kilometres, Moldova comes next at about 1,222, Belarus about 975, Romania about 614, Poland about 542, Hungary about 137 and Slovakia the shortest at about 98. The three named alternatives all appear on that list. Lithuania does not, because it lies further north: its own land neighbours are Latvia, Belarus, Poland and the Kaliningrad exclave of Russia, and a belt of Belarusian territory separates it from Ukraine altogether. The mistake the option invites is to lump Lithuania in with Poland and Belarus as one undifferentiated block of eastern Europe, but the three Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — sit along the Baltic coast, well to the north of the Ukrainian frontier.

• (a)Poland — Does border Ukraine, along about 542 kilometres of its north-western frontier — the crossing through which most refugees left after February 2022.
• (b)Romania — Does border Ukraine, along about 614 kilometres, and unusually in two separate stretches — one in the north around Bukovina and one in the south near the mouth of the Danube — because Moldova reaches the Danube between them.
• (d)Belarus — Does border Ukraine, along about 975 kilometres of its northern frontier. Belarus is in fact the one country that touches both Russia and Ukraine, and it is Belarus that stands between Lithuania and Ukraine.

Ukraine is the largest country lying wholly within Europe. Its seven land neighbours are Belarus, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia and Slovakia. To the south it faces the Black Sea and, through the Kerch Strait, the Sea of Azov; the Crimean peninsula projects into the Black Sea and is joined to the mainland by the narrow Isthmus of Perekop. Four of its neighbours — Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania — are members of both the European Union and NATO, which is why the western frontier became the corridor for refugees and supplies after the Russian invasion of February 2022.

Questions of this shape are answered by holding a short, ordered list rather than by picturing a map under pressure. Learn Ukraine's neighbours as a clockwise ring and check the option against it: north is Belarus, east and north-east is Russia, south-west is Moldova, then Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland run up the western side. Then learn the ring the distractor belongs to. Lithuania's neighbours are Latvia, Belarus, Poland and Kaliningrad, and the two rings share Belarus and Poland but never touch each other. A second useful anchor is that the Baltic states form a north-to-south column — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania — along the Baltic Sea, whereas Ukraine's coast is on the Black Sea, some 700 kilometres to the south. Note also that Moldova is easy to forget precisely because it is small and lands between Ukraine and Romania; several past items have used it as the answer.

• Ukraine shares land borders with seven countries: Belarus, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia and Slovakia.
• The Russian border is the longest at about 2,063 kilometres; the Slovak border is the shortest at about 98 kilometres.
• Lithuania borders Latvia, Belarus, Poland and the Kaliningrad exclave of Russia, and does not touch Ukraine.
• Belarus is the only country bordering both Russia and Ukraine.
• Ukraine's southern coast is on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, which are joined by the Kerch Strait.
• Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania are Ukraine's EU and NATO neighbours; Moldova is neither.

• Treating the Baltic states as Ukraine's neighbours because they are all post-Soviet republics; they are separated by Belarus.
• Forgetting Moldova, which is small but shares Ukraine's second-longest land boundary.
• Assuming Romania's border with Ukraine is a single stretch; it comes in two, because Moldova reaches the Danube between them.

Usually as a which-one-does-not-border item like this one, or in the reverse form — which country borders both of two named states — or by asking which sea or strait separates two places.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following countries shares a land boundary with both Russia and Ukraine?

  • (a)Estonia
  • (b)Latvia
  • (c)Belarus
  • (d)Moldova

  Answer(c) Belarus — it lies north of Ukraine and west of Russia, and is the only country touching both.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Sea of Azov is connected to the Black Sea by which one of the following?

  • (a)The Bosphorus
  • (b)The Kerch Strait
  • (c)The Dardanelles
  • (d)The Strait of Otranto

  Answer(b) The Kerch Strait — it separates the Crimean peninsula from the Taman peninsula and joins the two seas.