Six months to the day after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky assured Wednesday that his country would fight “to the end” to regain all of its territory, in a speech on the occasion of the anniversary of Ukrainian independence from the USSR.
On this symbolic day, US President Joe Biden confirmed the granting of new military aid to Ukraine, the largest from the United States since the start of the conflict on February 24, to enable it “to acquire air defense systems, artillery systems and ammunition […] as well as radars.
The United States “is committed to supporting the Ukrainian people […]. As part of this commitment, I am proud to announce our largest tranche of security assistance to date: approximately $2.98 billion in weapons and equipment,” he announced.
This Independence Day comes in a context of high tension, Ukraine fearing possible “repugnant Russian provocations”.
“We are going to fight for (our land) until the end”, declared the head of the Ukrainian state, specifying that it was about “the whole of Ukraine […] without any concession or compromise”, encompassing the Donbass basin (east), partly in the hands of separatists supported by Moscow since 2014, and Crimea, annexed by Russia the same year.
After a semester of war, tens of thousands of deaths and immense destruction, this anniversary of independence acquired in 1991 vis-à-vis the USSR will not give rise to festivities.
The president and his wife paid tribute to the fallen Ukrainian soldiers by observing a minute of silence and laying yellow and blue bouquets – in the colors of the national flag – in front of a memorial in central kyiv, before attending a rally in the cathedral Hagia Sophia, in which the leaders of the main religious denominations participated.
Authorities in kyiv, where anti-aircraft sirens sounded in the morning, banned all public gatherings from Monday to Thursday in the capital, and in the northeast the governor of the Kharkiv region ordered a curfew from Tuesday evening to Thursday morning.
In the early hours of August 24, explosions sounded in several cities, such as Kharkiv, Zaporijjia and Dnipro (center), according to local authorities.
“It’s sad to say but people have started to get used to it, they try to continue to live the same way,” says Mykola, a 33-year-old soldier met in Mykolaiv, a city in the south of the country where the missiles rain down daily.
Since the withdrawal of Russian forces from around kyiv in late March, the bulk of the fighting has been concentrated in the east, where Moscow slowly gained ground before the front froze, and in the south, where troops Ukrainians say they are carrying out a counter-offensive, which is also very slow. However, Russia continues to regularly target Ukrainian cities with long-range missiles, even though kyiv and its surroundings are rarely hit.
“Buffoonery”
Ally of Moscow, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who opened the territory of his country to Russian troops to launch an assault on Ukraine in February, nevertheless sent a message of congratulations on Wednesday to the Ukrainian people for their celebration national, wishing him “a peaceful sky” and calling for a “strengthening of friendly contacts”.
“It seems that Lukashenko really believes that the world does not notice his active participation in crimes against Ukraine”, retorted on Twitter an adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Mikhaïlo Podoliak, denouncing “buffoonery” and a “cynical” message. which “will have consequences”.
For their part, the Europeans had reaffirmed their support for kyiv on Tuesday during the summit of the “Crimean platform”, pre-existing to the invasion of February 24 and bringing together the main allies of Ukraine.
French President Emmanuel Macron sent a new message of support to Ukrainians on Wednesday, saying they could “be proud” of their 31 years of independence and their “exceptional resistance” to the Russian army for six months.
“We are mobilizing today and we will mobilize tomorrow to help the military resistance of Ukraine and Ukrainians, and also to help rebuild tomorrow,” he said in a video message.
“Madness of War”
In Rome, denouncing once again the “madness of war”, Pope Francis called on Wednesday to “eliminate the risk of a nuclear disaster in Zaporizhia”, the nuclear power plant in central Ukraine that Moscow and kyiv accuse each other of endangering.
The day before, the UN General Secretariat had called on the belligerents to cease all military activity around the site while Moscow and Paris mentioned an inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The director of the IAEA Rafael Grossi and that of the Russian Atomic Agency Rosatom Alexei Likhachev, met Wednesday in Istanbul to discuss such an inspection, according to the Russian agency.
At the request of Washington, Paris and London in particular, another meeting of the Security Council is scheduled for Wednesday morning to mark the six months of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.