President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has congratulated people on Ukraine’s Defenders Day. The video address was recorded from a command post on the Lyman front.
The President noted that it is on the front line that Ukrainian history is being written — among camouflage nets, with boards instead of flooring, and unit patches on the walls.
“This is where independence is won. And the path to peace runs through these labyrinths, through corridors like these. And when we say: Ukraine is holding on, the beginning of that resilience is right here — on the front line, at the command post,” the head of state believes.
Zelenskyy quoted a poem by fallen Ukrainian soldier and poet Maksym Kryvtsov: “When I am asked what war is, without hesitation I will answer: names,” and recalled some of the fallen fighters: Vitalii Skakun, Da Vinci, Nazarii Hryntsevych, Andrii Pilshchykov (Juice), Andrii Verkhohliad, Iryna Tsybukh, Pavlo Petrychenko, Oleksandr Matsiievskyi.
“Thank you to everyone who wears a unit patch on their shoulders and carries Independence on their shoulders. Soldiers and sergeants, warrant officers and sailors, our Ukrainian officers, everyone who is right now in positions, on missions, on combat duty; everyone who serves Ukraine and gives all their strength so as not to give up their Ukraine. Our infantry, airborne troops, intelligence, air defence, combat aviation, naval forces, artillery, communications troops, engineers — everyone in the Armed Forces and Special Operations Forces, the National Guard, the Security Service of Ukraine, the police who protect, the border guards — everyone who fights Russian evil in our skies, who operates FPV drones, unmanned ground systems, who is at a monitor during an important operation, who liberates our land and who brings back our sea — we are grateful to all of you, proud of everyone, and we value all our security and defence forces,” the President said in his address.
Ukraine’s Defenders Day is marked every year on the Feast of the Intercession. It was introduced in 2014 — the first year of the war against the Russian occupiers. At first, the holiday was observed on 14 October, but from 2023, when the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church switched to the Revised Julian calendar, it was moved to 1 October.