Ukraine celebrates 33rd anniversary of independence as war with Russia rages
Kyiv, Ukraine — A somber atmosphere reigns on Saturday on the occasion of the 33rd Independence Day of Ukraine, war against Russian aggression Ukrainian Resistance Fighters Day is celebrating its 30th month. No fireworks, parades or concerts are planned, and Ukrainians will instead mark the day with commemorations for civilians and soldiers killed during the war.
Ukrainians have flooded social media with messages of gratitude and support, greeting each other and thanking the soldiers on the front lines. In this spirit of unity, we all acknowledge that these two and a half years have been difficult and that fatigue is setting in more and more.
“Independence is the silence we experience when we lose our people,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the nation. “Independence is taking cover during an airstrike, only to persist and rise again and again to tell the enemy: You will not achieve anything.”
Zelensky stressed that the war unleashed by Russia was now spreading to its own territory. “Those who seek to sow evil on our land will reap the fruits on their own soil,” he said, referring to Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region earlier this month.
The president symbolically chose to place his speech in the northeastern city of Sumyjust a few kilometers from the Russian border, where Ukrainian forces crossed into Russia on August 6.
“913 days ago, Russia launched its war against us, partly through the Sumy region,” Zelensky said. “It violated not only sovereign borders, but also the limits of cruelty and common sense, driven by an insatiable desire to destroy us.”
Ukraine’s surprise raid on the Kursk region of Russiagave the war a surprising twist, adding a new front to the conflict to counter Russian advances in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. Ukraine quickly seized considerable Russian territory, including many small towns, and captured hundreds of Russian soldiers, actions that could influence the trajectory of the war.
“And those who sought to turn our lands into a buffer zone should now worry that their own country will not become a buffer federation,” he said. “That is how independence responds.”
The Ukrainian military claims to hold 1,200 square kilometers (480 square miles) of Russian territory in Kursk, and over the past week it has also launched drone attacks that have hit strategic bridges, Russian airfields and drone bases.
Even as Ukraine continues its offensive in Russia, it is also Evacuation of Pokrovsk residents in eastern Ukraine, with Russian forces now 10 kilometers from the strategic city.
Residents of Pokrovsk, once a town of 60,000, registered for evacuation at a central school on Friday and then, carrying bundles of belongings, boarded trains to take them to areas further from the conflict.
Also on Friday, Visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi The Ukrainian capital, kyiv. After hugging Zelensky, Modi offered “as a friend” to help bring peace to Ukraine. The Indian leader’s visit, though brief, has raised hopes among many in the war-torn country that it will help pave the way for India to play a role in mediating peace.
