Ukraine’s president has pledged to push for victory in 2023 as he and other Ukrainians marked the sombre first anniversary of the Russian invasion that changed their lives.
As dawn broke on a day of commemorations and defiance, President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted that Ukrainians had proven themselves to be “invincible” in what he called “a year of pain, sorrow, faith and unity”.
On February 24, millions of us made a choice. Not a white flag, but the blue and yellow one. Not fleeing, but facing. Resisting & fighting.
It was a year of pain, sorrow, faith, and unity. And this year, we remained invincible. We know that 2023 will be the year of our victory! pic.twitter.com/oInWvssjOI— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 24, 2023
“We know that 2023 will be the year of our victory!” the tweet said.
In a defiant video address, Mr Zelensky recalled the terror unleashed a year ago by the Russian assault, triggering Europe’s biggest and deadliest war since the Second World War.
He said February 24, 2022, the date of the Russian invasion, was “the longest day of our lives”.
“We survived the first day of the full-scale war. We didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, but we clearly understood that for each tomorrow, you need to fight. And we fought,” he said.
Ukrainians planned memorials, candle vigils and other remembrances for their tens of thousands of dead — a toll growing all the time as fighting rages in eastern Ukraine in particular.
There were concerns that Russia might unleash another barrage of missiles against Ukraine to pile yet more sadness on the day.
Mercifully, air raid alarms did not sound overnight in the capital, Kyiv, and dawn broke quietly.
Still, the government recommended that schools move classes online and office employees were asked to work from home.
Tributes to Ukraine’s resilience flowed from overseas. The Eiffel Tower in Paris was among monuments illuminated in Ukraine’s colours — yellow and blue.
Mr Zelensky said the February 24, 2022, Russian assault had been a moment when “millions of us made a choice”.
Ukrainians chose not the white flag of surrender “but the blue and yellow one. Not fleeing, but facing. Resisting and fighting,” his tweet said.
A year on, casualty figures are horrific on both sides, with Western estimates suggesting hundreds of thousands have been killed or wounded.
Economic and diplomatic repercussions have rippled across the globe.
Western nations are supporting Ukraine militarily, financially and politically. But China, India and countries in the global south have proven ambivalent about Western arguments that Ukraine is the front line of a fight for freedom and democracy.
Ukraine’s defence chief has congratulated the country’s armed forces for rebuffing an enemy “that terrified the whole world”.
“Our soldiers and the entire Ukrainian people took up a fight many in the world considered hopeless,” Oleksiy Reznikov said in an address posted on Facebook on Friday.
“You rebuffed the enemy’s army, which terrified the whole world. But it turned out to be powerless against Ukrainians, who are defending their home and their loved ones, fighting for their land,” he added.
Mr Reznikov said Kyiv will fight until it takes back all territory captured or annexed by Russia, and until the danger from Moscow is “eliminated.
And Ukraine’s army chief, Valery Zaluzhny, said his country’s resilience against Russia’s invasion “rests on our people”.
“Ordinary heroes among us. They are people who took up arms to protect their families, their homes and their state from the enemy’s unprovoked and unjustified aggression,” he wrote on Facebook on Friday.
“They are people who are now, at this moment, beating back the occupier, holding the line, freezing in our cold but dear, native land, saving the lives of their compatriots, helping the army however they can.”
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Thursday confirmed that Joe Biden and Mr Zelensky discussed Ukraine’s request for fighter jets during the US president’s recent visit to Kyiv.
Mr Zelensky has asked the US for F-16s, something that Mr Biden has declined to supply.
Mr Sullivan underscored that the administration has been focused on providing Ukraine with the weaponry they believe is most needed in the current and coming stages of the war.
He suggested, however, that the F-16 request could be revisited.
“They’re about to mount a significant counter-offence,” Mr Sullivan noted, referring to expectations that Ukraine will mount a spring offensive. “From our perspective, F-16s are not the key capability for that offensive. It is the stuff that we are moving rapidly to the front lines now.”
Meanwhile, the five Nordic prime ministers said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “has caused unimaginable suffering, death, and destruction on a scale not seen on our continent since the Second World War.”
In a joint statement on the one-year anniversary of the invasion, the government leaders of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden said that “Russia’s brutal aggression” was “the gravest threat to Euro-Atlantic security in decades.”
The consequences of the war “are felt far and wide. Economic stability, energy and food security are seriously threatened with severe consequences for the least developed countries,” they said in a statement.
“Ukraine’s struggle is our struggle.”
