Ukraine somberly marks 33 years of independence as war with Russia rages on
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine somberly marked its 33rd Independence Day on Saturday, setting the usual fireworks, parades and concerts aside to commemorate thousands of civilians and soldiers killed in the ongoing war with Russia.
Social media was flooded with messages of gratitude and support as Ukrainians greeted one another from around the country and thanked soldiers who are on the front lines.
And on Saturday, 115 Ukrainian servicemen were freed in a prisoner swap with Russia.
“Independence is the silence we experience when we lose our people,” President Volodymyr Zelensky declared to the nation in a video posted on Telegram. “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 the capital of Kyiv, people who had traveled from various regions of the nation paraded in festive vyshyvankas, shirts of many colors enhanced with adornments, including the traditional white shirt with red embroidery.
Some posed for pictures in front of the country’s blue-and-yellow flag and an “I Love Ukraine” sign that had been placed near a makeshift memorial to fallen soldiers.
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Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union on Aug. 24, 1991. Russia launched a full-scale invasion of the country on Feb. 24, 2022.
More than 11,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the conflict, according to the United Nations, which has indicated that the toll could be higher.
In February, the war’s second anniversary, Zelensky had said that 35,000 soldiers had been killed.
“We can celebrate this holiday thanks to our soldiers — because of them we live,” said Oksana Stavnycha, who traveled to Kyiv from the central region of 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,” Stavnycha added.
Zelensky recorded his address to the nation in the northeastern town of Sumy, near Russia’s Kursk region where Ukrainian forces made a surprise incursion this month. The move marked a startling turn to the war and added a new front.
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Ukraine quickly seized considerable Russian territory, including scores of small towns, and captured hundreds of Russian soldiers, part of an effort to counter Russia’s grinding advances in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
The military now says it holds 480 square miles of Russian territory and in the last week has launched drone attacks on strategic bridges and on Russian airfields and drone bases.
“Those who seek to sow evil on our land will reap its fruits on their own soil,” Zelensky said in his address. “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. This is how independence responds.”
Ukraine’s top military commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, honored the soldiers who fought in the Kursk region with military awards. “Our independence is in our blood,” he said on Telegram on Saturday. “In the blood that flows in our veins, in the blood that our heroes shed for their native land.”
Ukraine welcomed back 115 service members who were freed in the swap, many of whom were taken prisoner in the first months of Russia’s invasion.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the 115 Russian soldiers had been captured in the Kursk region. The ministry said the soldiers were currently in Belarus, but would be taken to Russia for medical treatment and rehabilitation.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine discloses how many POWs there are in total.
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Zelensky said in a post on X that the United Arab Emirates had brokered the exchange. Photos attached to the post show gaunt servicemen with shaven heads and wrapped in Ukrainian flags.
“We remember each and every one,” Zelensky said in the post. “We are searching and doing our best to get everyone back,” Zelensky said in the post.
According to the U.N., most Ukrainian POWs suffer routine medical neglect, severe and systematic mistreatment and even torture. There have also been isolated reports of abuse of Russian soldiers, mostly during capture or transit to internment sites.
Even as Ukraine presses its offensive into Russia, it is evacuating residents from Pokrovsk, a strategic city in eastern Ukraine that once had a population of 60,000. Encroaching Russian forces are now just six miles outside the city.
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. This weekend, still recovering from a concussion and a fractured shoulder, he stood in Kyiv’s Independence Square, holding hands with his wife.
“This day is about our freedom,” he said, standing near the makeshift memorial, where thousands of flags fluttered in memory of those lost.
Some of the banners honored soldiers who had fought alongside Kysil.
“These are the golden days,” said Kysil, who will return to the front line once his rehabilitation is complete.
“Every life is priceless,” added his wife, Yuliia Fedenko. “We value every minute of the time we have.”
Arhirova writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Illia Novikov and Elise Morton and Times staff contributed to this report.
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