On Ukraine's 35th Independence Day, President Zelensky declared the country a fighter, not a victim, and said it won't capitulate for peace.
On August 24, Ukraine marked the 35th anniversary of its independence — day 1,643 of the full-scale war. In a video address, President Volodymyr Zelensky told citizens the country had long stopped being a bystander to its own fate: "Not an observer, but a player. Not a victim, but a fighter." Volunteers Support Ukraine follows this anniversary closely, because the everyday resilience the president described is exactly what determines how much aid actually reaches the people waiting for it.
Zelensky recalled that in the spring of 2022 many predicted Ukraine would hold out only days. Instead, the country has endured the entire war for its independence, drawing on people supporting one another. He said Putin miscalculated specifically about Ukrainians, mistaking them for a weakness when they are, in fact, the state's greatest asset. The president also stressed that Russia would not get Donbas without a fight, and that no one would help the Kremlin "rescue" the hundreds of thousands of soldiers it has already lost.
Even in a defiant speech, Zelensky repeated that Ukraine wants peace, but not at the price of capitulation. He urged the country's main partners, the US and the EU, to consolidate support to bring the war closer to an end, and called on China to actively oppose Russian aggression rather than stay on the sidelines. He spoke as foreign leaders arrived in Kyiv and as a fresh wave of missiles and drones hit the country — a contrast the president himself described as "a holiday whose taste the war has changed."
Zelensky separately thanked Ukraine's armed forces, calling them the strongest in Europe, and described ordinary Ukrainians as the country's principal asset. In his telling, the 35th anniversary is not simply a date on the calendar — it is proof that the state survived where it had been given only days.
The president's words about people supporting one another echo the daily work Volunteers Support Ukraine carries out — the organisation keeps helping people affected by the war in whatever way its available resources allow, not tied to any single region or date. That quiet, everyday support is part of what builds the resilience the president spoke of today.
