‘We have been standing for exactly one year’
Zelenskyy defiant on anniversary of Russian invasion in Ukraine
KYIV, Ukraine – Ukraine’s leader pledged Friday to push for victory in 2023 as he and other Ukrainians marked the somber anniversary of the Russian invasion that upended their lives and Europe’s security.
It was Ukraine’s “longest day,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, but the country’s dogged resistance a year on has proven that “every tomorrow is worth fighting for.”
On a day of commemorations, reflection and tears, the Ukrainian president’s defiant tone captured the national mood of resilience in the face of Europe’s biggest and deadliest war since World War II. Zelenskyy, who has himself become a symbol of Ukraine’s refusal to bow to Moscow, said Ukrainians proved themselves to be invincible during “a year of pain, sorrow, faith and unity.”
“We have been standing for exactly one year,” Zelenskyy said. Feb. 24, 2022, he said, was “the longest day of our lives. The hardest day of our modern history. We woke up early and haven’t fallen asleep since.”
Ukrainians wept at memorials for their tens of thousands of dead – a toll growing inexorably as fighting rages in eastern Ukraine in particular. Although Friday marked the anniversary of the full-scale invasion, combat between Russian-backed forces and Ukrainian troops has raged in the country’s east since 2014.
New video from there shot with a drone for The Associated Press showed how the town of Marinka has been razed, along with others.
The killing continued: Russian shelling killed another three civilians and wounded 19 others in the most recent 24-hour spell, Ukraine’s presidential office said.
Around the country, Ukrainians looked back at a year that changed their lives and at the clouded future.
“I can sum up the last year in three words: Fear, love, hope,” said Oleksandr Hranyk, a school director in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
Although China on Friday called for a cease-fire, peace was nowhere in sight. Ukraine previously rejected a pause in the fighting for fear it would allow Russia to regroup militarily after bruising battlefield setbacks.
Zelenskyy gave qualified support to China’s new pronouncements about the cease-fire and peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in a vaguely worded proposal released Friday.
“China has shown its thoughts. I believe that the fact that China started talking about Ukraine is not bad,” the president said during a wide-ranging news conference. “But the question is what follows the words. The question is in the steps and where they will lead to.”
A 12-point paper issued by China’s Foreign Ministry also urged an end to sanctions that aim to squeeze Russia’s economy.
That suggestion also looked like a nonstarter, given that Western nations are working to further tighten the sanctions noose, not loosen it. Both the U.K. and U.S. imposed more sanctions Friday.
Ukraine is readying another military push to roll back Russian forces with the help of weaponry that has poured in from the West. NATO member Poland said Friday that it had delivered four advanced Leopard 2A4 tanks, making it the first country to hand the Germanmade armor to Ukraine.
The prime minister of Poland said on a visit to Kyiv that more Leopards are coming.
“Ukraine is entering a new period, with a new task – to win,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said.