How Zelenskyy’s Independence Day Speech Resonates Amid Ukraine’s War Against Russia
In a video recorded in the Sumy region, which connects Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy briefed Ukrainians that war has ‘returned’ to Russia.
“Those who seek to sow evil on our land will reap its fruits on their soil,”
Zelenskyy stated, referring to Ukraine’s attack earlier this month into Russia’s Kursk region.
“Independence is the silence we experience when we lose our people,” he said. Independence descends into the shelter during an air attack, only to endure and rise again and again to tell the opponent: You will achieve nothing.”
How Ukraine’s Independence Day Is Marked by Somber Reflection and Zelenskyy’s Pledge
Zelenskyy was preaching to Ukrainians on the 33rd anniversary of their independence from the communist Soviet Union which tumbled in 1991. A somber atmosphere permeated Ukraine’s Independence Day as the nation’s fight against Russia’s aggression reached a 30-month milestone. No fireworks, parades or shows are planned and instead, Ukrainians will celebrate the day with commemorations for civilians and soldiers killed in the war.
Ukrainians have bombarded social media with messages of gratitude and backing, greeting each other and thanking the soldiers on the front lines. In the outpouring of harmony, there’s a shared declaration that the two-and-a-half years have been tough, with exhaustion increasingly setting in.
“913 days ago, Russia undertook its war against us, partly through the Sumy region,”
Zelenskyy stated.
“They violated not only sovereign borders but also the limitations of cruelty and common sense, helmed by an insatiable desire to destroy us.”
Ukraine’s shock incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, gave the war a surprising turn, adding a new front to the battle to counter Russia’s grinding advances in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Ukraine quickly grabbed considerable Russian territory, including scores of small towns, and seized hundreds of Russian soldiers, moves that may have affected the war’s trajectory.
“And those who desired to turn our lands into a buffer zone should now fear that their own country doesn’t become a pillow federation,”
he stated.
“This is how independence answers.”
Ukraine’s military assertions to hold 1,200 square kilometres of Russian region in Kursk, and in the past week it has also undertaken drone attacks that have struck strategic bridges and Russian airfields and drone bases. Even as Ukraine demands its offensive into Russia, however, it is also evacuating citizens from Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, as Russian forces are now 10 kilometres from the strategic metropolis.
