while Russians rival Ukrainians for among east slavs
Haha - a good joke!
Based on the comments of Ukrainians under news articles online, the competition is definitely taking place (from at least one of the sides).
Things I learned from Ukrainians:
1) Ancient Ukropithecus excavated the Black Sea by hand, to create a coastline for beloved kraina.
2) Belarus and Russia are colonies of Ukraine. This one is tricky... On the one hand, Ukrainians want to proclaim that there was only one "Kievan Rus", on the other hand - the heart dictates that there must have been even then a glorious country called Ukraine. Those righteous souls that believe Ukraine existed even then, deservedly consider that Belarus and Russia were wild forestlands populated by Ugro-Finnic orcs that had to be tamed and civilized by the noble UKR-race.
3) Egyptians and Sumerians move to the side! Ukrainians are 140,000 years old as an ethnicity. The name of the ancient tribe was Ukri, and it is the origin of all Indo-European languages. Paradoxically, they also existed contemporaneously with the Goths, Huns, Scythians, and Sarmatians - all of whom got their ass kicked by Ukrainians. In general, Ukrainians don't find it strange that 75% of their historical textbooks are occupied by the Neolithic, Iron Age, and Bronze Age - while 75% of Russian textbooks deal with the last 5 centuries. Attaching an image of UKR textbook with 140K history below.
4) That Gogol, despite never writing a single piece of text in Ukrainian, is a "National Ukrainian Author".
5) That joining the Polish-Lithuanian Union was a forced measure, in reaction to threats from the Teutonic Knights and Muscovy.
6) The horse was domesticated in Ukraine. As well as the elephant, wooly rhinoceros, and Emu.
7) Ukrainian is rated as the "second most melodic and pleasing to the ear language in the world after Italian".
8) All the smart people in Moscow in Soviet times were Ukrainians, and that's why "bone-in-brain" Russians can't get anything to work right since 1991.