KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A somber atmosphere pervaded Ukraine’s 33rd Independence Day on Saturday, as the nation’s fight to repel Russia’s full-scale invasion reached a 30-month milestone. No fireworks, parades or concerts were planned and instead Ukrainians marked the day with commemorations for civilians and soldiers killed in the war.
Ukrainians flooded social media with messages of gratitude and support, greeting each other and thanking the soldiers on the front lines. In the outpouring of unity, there’s a shared acknowledgment that the two-and-a-half years have been tough, with fatigue increasingly setting in.
“Independence is the silence we experience when we lose our people,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said to the nation. “Independence descends into the shelter during an air raid, only to endure and rise again and again to tell the enemy: ‘You will achieve nothing.’”
In central Kyiv, people paraded in festive “vyshyvankas,” Ukrainian traditional embroidered shirts. Some took pictures with the national blue-yellow flag in front of an “I Love Ukraine” sign near a makeshift memorial dedicated to the fallen soldiers.
“We can celebrate this holiday thanks to our soldiers — because of them we live,” said Oksana Stavnycha, who came to Kyiv from Vinnytsia with her 7-year-old daughter and husband. They planned to lay flowers to honor Ukraine’s fallen soldiers.
“The price of our independence is very high, and every day many men give up their lives for it.”
Zelenskyy pointed out that the war, which Russia launched on Feb. 24, 2022, has now spread to its own territory.
“Those who seek to sow evil on our land will reap its fruits on their own soil,” he said, referring to Ukraine’s incursion earlier this month into Russia’s Kursk region.
The president symbolically chose to record his address in the northeastern town of Sumy, near the Russian border, where Ukrainian forces crossed into Russia on Aug. 6.
“913 days ago, Russia launched its war against us, partly through Sumy region,” Zelenskyy said. “They violated not only sovereign borders but also the boundaries of cruelty and common sense, driven by an insatiable desire to destroy us.”
Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, gave the war a startling turn, adding a new front to the conflict to counter Russia’s grinding advances in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Ukraine quickly seized considerable Russian territory, including scores of small towns, and captured hundreds of Russian soldiers, moves that may influence the war’s trajectory.
“And those who sought to turn our lands into a buffer zone should now worry that their own country doesn’t become a buffer federation,”Zelenskyy said. “This is how independence responds.”
Ukraine’s military claims to hold 1,200 square kilometers (480 square miles) of Russian territory in Kursk, and in the past week it has also launched drone attacks that have struck strategic bridges and Russian airfields and drone bases.
Ukraine’s top military commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, honored the soldiers who fought in Kursk region with military awards. “Our independence is in our blood,” he posted on Telegram on Saturday. “In the blood that flows in our veins, in the blood that our heroes shed for their native land”.
Even as Ukraine presses its offensive into Russia, however, it is also evacuating residents from Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, as Russian forces are now 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the strategic city.
Residents of Pokrovsk, once a city of 60,000, on Friday registered for evacuation at a central school and then, carrying bundles of belongings, boarded trains to take them to areas further from the conflict.
Ihor Kysil, a 52-year-old soldier from the 110th Brigade, was wounded for the second time about a month ago while fighting in the Pokrovsk area. On Friday, still recovering from a concussion and a fractured shoulder, and dealing with hearing problems from an earlier injury, he stood in Kyiv’s Independence Square, holding hands with his wife.
“This day is about our freedom,” he said, as he stood near the makeshift memorial for fallen soldiers, where thousands of flags fluttered in honor of those who have been lost. Among them were flags for comrades Kysil knew and served alongside.
“Every life is priceless,” his wife, Yuliia Fedenko, added. “We value every minute of the time we have.”
“These are the golden days,” Kysil said, knowing that once his rehabilitation is complete, he will return to the front line.