Kyiv: President Volodymyr Zelensky told Ukrainians in an emotional speech marking 31 years of independence on Wednesday that their country had been “reborn” when Russia invaded and that it would never give up its fight for freedom from Moscow’s domination.
In a recorded speech aired on the six-month anniversary of Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, Zelensky said Ukraine no longer saw the warning when the fighting stopped but when Kyiv finally emerged victorious. “A new nation appeared in the world on Feb. 24 at 4 o’clock in the morning. It
was not born, but reborn.
A nation that did not cry, scream or take fright. One that did not flee. Did not give up. And did not forget,” he said. The 44-year-old warti me leader delivered the speech in combat fatigues in front of central Kyiv’s towering monument to independence from the Russian-dominated Soviet Union that broke up in 1991.
Zelensky underscored Ukraine’s hardening war stance that opposes any kind of compromise that would allow Moscow to lock in territorial gains, including swathes of southern and eastern Ukraine captured over the past six months. “We will not sit down at the negotiating table out of fear, with a gun pointed at our heads. For us, the most terrible iron is not missiles, aircraft, and tanks, but shackles.
