35 years ago Ukraine became independent.
But independence lives not only in documents, borders, or symbols. It lives in people. In those who stay, work, protect, save, restore every day… And once again choose independence.
Today I want to say the most important word to you: thank you!
Thank you to the soldiers. To those who hold the front. To those who are tired but have not retreated. To those whose brief message “I am alive” is awaited at home every day.
Thank you to the military medics. To those who go where others try to leave. Who under fire gives a person a chance to see the morning.
Thank you to the volunteers. To those who have been waking up for 12 years thinking about the front. Who search, gather, buy, deliver, and never ask what it will change. Because they know: sometimes one car, one drone, one first aid kit, or even a tourniquet changes everything.
Thank you to the rescuers. To those who enter the fire, who dismantle the rubble by hand, who search under the debris to the last for a person, a child, even a pet, because every life is important.
Thank you to the energy and utility workers. To those who bring back light after the darkest night. Who, even before morning, clear debris from the streets so our cities wake up and live again.
Thank you to the farmers. To those who sow on land that was demined just the day before. Who harvests grain under alarms and feeds the army, the community, Ukraine.
Thank you to the teachers. To those who teach underground, without light, sometimes without heat, who amidst war are with children, with our future.
Thank you to the doctors. To those who don’t ask how much more they can endure, but simply enter the next ward and do everything to save a life.
And thank you to the families. To those who wait, because it is truly not easy. Who support, who learn to live with anxiety and still find the strength to love, work, raise children.
Unfortunately, we will not be able to name each one and thank each personally, but we know the main thing: the country is held not by abstract words — it is held by people like you.
35 years ago we voted for independence, and today we Ukrainians prove every day that the country has a great future. Thank you for Ukraine standing strong! For Ukraine living! And for Ukraine will be, definitely will be!
Warriors of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,
Dear Ukrainians!
35 years ago, Ukraine restored its Independence.
But our struggle for it did not start in 1991. Before us, there were generations of Ukrainians who fought for their state, went underground, were imprisoned, preserved the language, culture, and the right to call themselves Ukrainians when it was punished.
Today, this struggle has fallen to us.
And we well know the price of Independence.
I see it every day.
In people who have held the front for years. In those who take to the skies, go to sea, shoot down missiles, evacuate the wounded. In those who return to the ranks after trials. In families waiting for their loved ones.
In our military and civilians held in Russian captivity, whom we must bring back home.
In Ukrainians in temporarily occupied territories, waiting for Ukraine’s return. In Crimea, which has lived under Russian occupation for twelve years now.
And in the memory of those who will never return.
This is a very high price. And we must clearly understand what we are paying it for.
For the right to decide how to live. For the right to be Ukrainians in our land. For our people to return home from captivity. For those living under occupation today to once again live in their country. For no other state to decide for Ukraine where its borders are, what language we speak, whom to elect, and what future to build.
This is exactly why we fight.
I won’t tell you it will be easy ahead.
I command an army that fights hard every day. I know our fatigue. I know our losses. I know the cost of decisions that have to be made.
But I also know the strength of people who continue to do their work after everything they’ve been through.
Hard battles lie ahead.
But we know what we are fighting for.
For an independent Ukraine.
Thank you to everyone who protects it today.
Happy Independence Day!
Glory to Ukraine!
This is a very cool idea to hold such a parade—robotic and controlled!
Firstly, everything in the video is of our own, Ukrainian production! Heavy bombers, FPVs, reconnaissance and interceptor drones. Surface and ground complexes. Everything is ours!
Secondly, many technologies and details were shown that I want to highlight separately.
The NRCs marched perfectly. If such technologies (mass control) have long existed for FPVs, and Ukrainian technology by Swormer is unique, then how did the NRCs march in formation? I doubt such technology exists for them because all the key NRCs were in the video, and they are all different. To unite them under one, common swarm control—I will be very surprised if someone did this at the software level. Lynxes, Cockroaches, Termites, and Atamans—all were under the control of individual operators. Different wheels, gearboxes, and even tracks—it’s not like training a “parade box” of 200 people. This was the highest level of simultaneous piloting!
Sea BECs—SeaBaby, Magura, and Sargan. In all configurations—kamikaze, reconnaissance, air defense, and remote FPV launch. Nothing like this arsenal exists in the world!
An FPV swarm, even grid-like, is no longer surprising, but what about the shots of interceptor drone launches from a Mi-8 helicopter? Six launches from a pickup? And the PD-2 Drone, which was a reconnaissance but also launched interceptors? Here, it was demonstrated why the strike rate against Shaheds is so high. Such variability is also unmatched in the world!
We still have many technologies and means to show the world. We haven’t shown missiles and much more. But we showcased robotic forces from all three domains. And this is not just some presentation—these are all combat models that have gone through a full development cycle and have long proven their effectiveness in battle!
The NRCs alone are invaluable. I haven’t seen interceptors or BEC usage numbers. But the official NRC usage statistics show a tremendous increase in mission execution. From 7,500 in January, we reached 20,000 in July! Twenty THOUSAND missions carried out by NRCs to save people in July! And overall, NRCs have executed over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND missions since the start of the year!
Such a beautiful parade. Although not all the people were shown, behind every mission there are many people. Therefore, the parade was with people, and many military personnel watched it live, because all these means save and preserve lives. The most important thing in war is people and preserving their lives. No authoritarian army can reach that. This parade once again proves this phrase — we are fundamentally different from the swamps.
And I congratulate everyone on our Independence Day!
35 years of Independence.
We managed to preserve Ukrainian independence largely because we — among the few of the former Soviet Union republics — chose not only independence, but also democracy.
For Ukrainians, independence and democracy are inseparable. There can be no true Ukrainian independence without freedom. And therefore today our main task is the same as 35 years ago: to preserve independence, defend it in the war with Russia — and at the same time preserve democracy.
Lately, some political commentators have suggested establishing a dictatorship as a panacea for the country’s current problems. This is absurd. And it’s a direct road to the destruction of the state and the denial of Ukrainian state traditions.
Supporters of such views like to refer to history, recall Yevhen Konovalets and other leaders of the Ukrainian national liberation movement of the first half of the 20th century. But this is precisely a case where ignorance of the past leads to dangerous mistakes in the present.
The political conclusion of the Ukrainian national liberation movement during wartime was the establishment of the Ukrainian Supreme Liberation Council in July 1944. Its political program provided not for a dictatorship, but for an independent state with a democratic system, political freedoms, and citizen equality.
Four years later, the Ukrainian National Council was created as a representative body of the State Center of the UPR in exile and the continuation of the state tradition of the Ukrainian People’s Republic.
The movement’s program, which we traditionally call dissident, was also democratic. It was this tradition that continued the struggle for independence in the late 1980s — early 1990s.
Freedom, democracy, dignity, and Europe were the slogans of our revolutions — the Orange Revolution of 2004 and the Revolution of Dignity 2013–2014.
And it is precisely the democratic Ukrainian state that has been opposing Russian aggression for thirteen years.
Russia is at war with us not only because it wants our territory. It is fighting against the very Ukrainian choice: to be independent, free, democratic, and European.
Therefore, the attempt to oppose democracy to state efficiency, freedom to victory, and citizen rights to national security is not just a mistake. It is a denial of what Ukrainians have fought for over generations.
Only a democratic Ukraine will have the trust of the free world, the support of the European Union, and a real prospect of membership in it. But even this is not the main thing.
We need democracy not because Europe demands it. We need it because it is the Ukrainian choice.
35 years ago, we voted for independence. All the following decades have proven that for us, independence means freedom. Today, our task is not to lose either the first or the second.
Happy Independence Day of Ukraine!
The Day of Ukraine’s Independence Restoration for me was and remains a key holiday, especially when I survived under Russian bombs exactly on this day, two years ago.
We are an absolutely heroic nation that for centuries and millennia does not change its strategy: Freedom is the ultimate value.
Despite all the efforts of enemies to turn us into serfs, peaceful farmers, what-difference-does-it-make people, dodgers, and deserters, the critical mass is – warriors guarding the State.
I want to wish us all wisdom. Wisdom to finally build a state where the heroism of some would not constantly compensate for the failures of others, where the sacrifice and volunteerism of the majority would not be negated by the corruption and greed of the minority, so that pioneers lead not a crowd but a nation, where the idea is not just a loud slogan, but a strategy and a clear reform implementation plan from A to Z.
We are once again convinced that the foundation of the state is the Armed Forces.
We still need to realize that a strong army is impossible without a strong state, that effective governance is not something foreign or ridiculous, that you choose once every 5-10 years and then constantly dread, but competent responsible patriots who need to be found, educated, prepared, entrusted, supported, and constantly monitored.
We will succeed.
Because with a sword, we have the right!
Happy holiday!
Walking the cobblestones of Paris, Dresden, or Copenhagen, I have always admired the local architecture and societies that have for generations laid stone upon stone in the walls, letter by letter in the laws, to build their magnificent cities and institutions.
I was impressed by their driverless subways, tidiness, approaches, politicians, and relationships.
I loved immersing myself in the surrounding foreign space so much that in Paris, there wasn’t a single street within the first transport zone that I hadn’t visited. What more can I say when I even walked to Versailles…
Despite my admiration, I always felt a good envy that all of that was built by their parents and grandparents. It’s theirs. Rightly earned and suffered. Drenched in the sweat of labor and the blood of wars and revolutions.
In 2014, when I returned to Ukraine and decided to stay, to influence something and fight for something, I didn’t imagine that besides “battles” for science and education, lobbying for intellect and progress, in 2025, I would join the army and in 2026, together with many good people, influence the real battle for Independence, which is happening right now.
Many enemies try to convince us that it’s better to leave because you can’t influence anything here.
That you’re just a cog while serious people are making money and throwing bodies into fields.
That it’s better to spend your life on your children’s lives there than to spend it here in your own country, to LIVE here together with them.
That social death abroad is better than any possibility of being killed here.
What’s on the scoreboard?
I find it hard to count all the instances when, over these 12 years, my words, expertise, or advice really influenced the legislative field or the creation of institutions in the country. Because there are many.
I find it hard to imagine where abroad I could find such a bubble of my own that fights so passionately for a common future with good governance.
I won’t even try to search for such courageous people around the world because it is here that those remain — hardened by the crucible of battles, who know the value of every minute of life and every meter of their land. Their own.
While we are here, the battle is not finished. Neither with the Russians nor with our own bastards.
And Ukraine…
What about her…
In 35 years it has progressed immensely. It has lost a lot, but for a post-colonial country that Russians continued to poison, it’s normal. Those who left even 10 years ago can see the difference. What about those who left in the 90s or 2000s.
There are tough times ahead, but not tougher than during the UNR or UPA period. Because we have the progressive world with us. Although at times cynical, pragmatic, lazy, and clumsy. But even here, nonetheless, the progress is colossal.
Happy State Flag Day and Independence Day, dear ones.
The best illustration for them is the photo that Olexandr Burlaka recently brought to light. It’s the chevron of the fallen serviceman Serhiy Karpo, photographed by Vitaliy Ovcharenko. You can read the story of the photo here. In these blood-soaked colors lies the essence of our existence. Our existence in our own country.
Now I love walking through Ukrainian cities.
I travel a lot through Ukrainian villages.
And I often gaze at the endless Ukrainian sky.
We’ll kill them all.
Have a quiet night and stay in shelters.
I’ve been thinking all day about what to write for the 35th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence.
I’m not very good at fantasy. Accordingly, my supply of inspired escapades about statehood, about a united nation under a single flag, about prospects and achievements is very scant.
The fact is that our independence is very conditional.
What kind of independence is it when we live on credit? What kind of independence is it when we can’t counteract ballistic missiles?
When half the country is tired of fighting and donating, and the other half is afraid to step outside for fear of being caught and forced to fulfill obligations with practically non-existent rights.
When some write that things weren’t this bad under Yanukovych, others ask why the state doesn’t care about their problems, while others rent out apartments to displaced persons for unimaginable amounts in the West or rent half-ruined houses to the military in the East.
When our government builds dynasties instead of social housing.
When what’s practiced more and more often falls under the dictionary definition of “repression.”
And these are all facts. They exist. I can’t unsee them.
Our independence is shaky and elusive. In reality, we are only moving towards it, though we’ve wandered through deserts almost as long as the Jews did with Moses.
Although this isn’t entirely true either.
Because before 2014, we were sitting still, selling off the army’s “excess property.” We lived like hamsters in an aquarium, not even thinking about the cat beyond the thin glass, for whom we were nothing but food.
In truth, we were building dependency, not independence. Until the rose-tinted glass shattered into our eyes.
Therefore, I believe we are only on the path to independence. And this path is a thin thread over an abyss, and we walk it with our eyes closed and accompanied by the sound of a Marathon. We don’t know what to do with this mess.
So happy holiday, compatriots.
Let’s celebrate that we haven’t fallen yet.
Let’s celebrate that we still have the strength to keep going.
That we hope for victory, even without believing in it.
That we laugh to keep from crying.
And let’s thank those who are tired of fighting.
Tired of donating.
Tired of volunteering. Tired but still doing it.
So that at least our grandchildren won’t have to fight. So that at least they can live to the time when we pay off our debts. When we have countless of those damn Flamingos. When no one dares to cross our borders with weapons.
When “from the San to the Don” becomes a reality, not an exercise in auto-suggestion.
