Ukraine president strikes tone of grim defiance as he recalls ‘longest day of our lives’ on 24 February 2022
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has pledged to push for victory this year as Ukraine marks the sombre first anniversary of the Russian invasion, an event the president called “the longest day of our lives”.
Funerals for the recently killed were taking place across the country on Friday morning alongside church services to commemorate the fallen, in a grim reminder of the relentless attrition of the continuing war.
As morning broke on a day of commemorations and reflection, Zelenskiy struck a tone of grim defiance as he congratulated Ukrainians on their resilience in the face of Europe’s biggest and deadliest war since second world war. He said they had proven themselves to be invincible over “a year of pain, sorrow, faith and unity”.
Sitting at a desk, dressed in a blue sweatshirt with Ukraine’s trident emblem, Zelenskiy paid homage to cities that have become bywords for alleged Russian war crimes, such as Bucha, Irpin and Mariupol, describing them as “capitals of invincibility”.
“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 in an early morning video address.
“The longest day of our lives. The hardest day of our modern history. We woke up early and haven’t fallen asleep since,” he said.
At a service at St Vladimir’s church in Kyiv, the former patriarch Filaret described the “challenges and suffering” his country was facing. “Why do [Ukrainians] volunteer to fight?” he asked. “Is it for money? No. It is to defend their land and their people.”
As if to reinforce the point, a group of soldiers from the 112th brigade and former work colleagues were waiting outside to bury Yuri Storazhev, a government auditor in his 50s who was killed recently in the fighting in the east.
