KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine somberly marked its 33rd Independence Day on Saturday, setting the usual fireworks, parades and concerts aside to commemorate thousands of civilians and soldiers killed in the ongoing war with Russia.
The video in the player above is from a previous related report.
Social media was flooded with messages of gratitude and support as Ukrainians greeted each other from around the country and thanked soldiers who are on the front lines.
“Independence is the silence we experience when we lose our people,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared to the nation in a video posted on Telegram. “Independence descends into the shelter during an air raid, only to endure and rise again and again to tell the enemy: ‘You will achieve nothing.'”
In the capital of Kyiv, people who had traveled from various regions of the nation paraded in festive “vyshyvankas,” shirts of many colors enhanced with adornments, including the traditional white …