Fellow citizens!
Exactly 105 years ago, right here on Sophia Square in Kyiv, the following lines were proclaimed: “The age-old dreams have come true, dreams that the best sons of Ukraine lived for and died for. From now on, the parts of a single Ukraine, separated for centuries, are united into one.”
These are the words of the Unification Act, which brought together the Ukrainian lands on both banks of the Dnipro River into a single state. And on this occasion, today we celebrate the Day of Unity of Ukraine.
Every year on January 22, we have always recalled two key lessons of those times, two guiding principles for all generations of the Ukrainian nation: to gain your own statehood, you have to fight. To preserve it, you have to unite.
And the day has come when it fell to all of us to prove: both these lessons have been learned. Every Ukrainian knows this day. When recalling it, there’s no need to mention the year, just the date and month will suffice. It’s the 24th of February.
When we showed that the unity and independence of Ukraine are real, not declarative values for us. And we did not give up our state, but proved from the first day of the war that people’s full-scale unity repels full-scale enemy aggression. Not symbolically, not sporadically, not in words, but on the frontlines – on all fronts of the war against unfreedom. In all forms of the battle for the preservation of Ukraine. United, independent, strong.
As a tribute to it, since 1990, Ukrainians have been coming together in human chains of unity. Ukrainian unity stretching from west to east. On February 24, Ukrainians joined hands again. Having chosen again not the chains of slavery, but the chain of unity. The only difference is that it has taken on a new form. When every Ukrainian no longer had the concept of “my” or “not my” region, as every corner of Ukraine, every city and village became native. When we became dear to each other. When Ukrainians from Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Odesa, Dnipro fight for Ukrainians in Donbas and Crimea, in the south and north. When Ukrainians from Zakarpattia, Bukovyna, and Halychyna open the doors of their homes and provide shelter to Ukrainians from Mariupol, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia. Ukrainians who fight. Ukrainians who work. Ukrainians who help. Ukrainian mothers and Ukrainian children who have lost their homes and are now abroad, contributing to the common resistance, collecting and delivering what is needed here. When Ukrainians from every region work to protect every region.
Full text of the address: Office of the President of Ukraine
