Ukraine has proved that it has become a truly independent state

Ivan Sichen

In August 2023, Ukraine celebrated the 32^nd anniversary of its Independence. Unfortunately, this year was the second year of Russia’s full-scale war against our state. However, despite all the losses, we did not capitulate, moreover, we turned the tide of hostilities in our favor. Everyone sees how Ukraine forced Russia to move from strategic offensive to defense in most sectors of the front line.

At this, Ukraine is provided with international support of the global level, and Russia has become a rogue state. In fact, even its “strategic partner” — China — rejects it. Therefore, Russia’s defeat in such a war is inevitable. And the next Independence Day of our state we will celebrate on the ruins of Moscow. Moreover, Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles are already getting there almost every day. We do not need foreign territories at all, yet it is necessary to liberate Russians from Putin’s regime.

Let’s start with an assessment of the situation at the front. Since the beginning of June 2023, Ukrainian troops have been carrying out counteroffensive operations in the East near the city of Bakhmut and in the South of Ukraine in the direction of the cities of Mariupol, Melitopol and Berdiansk. They are carried out slowly, but confidently and effectively. We, unlike the Russians, do not resort to desperate bloody assaults. For us, human lives are the highest price. Nevertheless, we are achieving tangible success.

The Russian invaders have not been able to fully capture Bakhmut, in which they have invested all their resources accumulated during last year’s autumn mobilization. Moreover, during our counteroffensive, we began to surround the invaders. Of course, even the semi-encirclement of the city is still far away. However, it is almost completely under our fire control. And from the northwestern streets, the invaders were forced to retreat. They will retreat from the whole city and get out of the Donbas.

In the South, Ukrainian troops are breaking through the enemy’s multi-echelon defense system. In some areas, the first line has been overcome, or as it is also called — the pre-field in front of the main line of fortifications. There are solid minefields, strongholds of Russian troops and fighting positions for mobile anti-tank missile systems. It is also covered by the second-echelon artillery, helicopters and tactical aviation.

Even more complicated is the main defense line, with anti-tank ditches and reinforced concrete obstacles, the so-called dragon teeth. In addition, there are also new minefields, strongholds and cannons. They are powerful and considered impregnable. But, Ukrainian troops have some experience in breaking through. Near the village of Robotino they broke through. And in June 2023, our friends, Russian rebels from the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Legion “Freedom to Russia”, quite easily overcame the same line of barriers on the border between Belgorod region of Russia and Ukraine.

We do not attribute to ourselves their achievements, but we believe that the activity of Russian insurgents and partisans is another consequence of Ukraine’s independence. Russians saw that a Slavic country on the territory of the former USSR could be free, democratic and European, unlike today’s Russia and Belarus with their totalitarian regimes. In the past, Ukrainians and Poles opposed the Russian Empire under a single slogan “for our and your freedom”. Now, under the same slogan, Ukrainians are fighting together with Russians for the freedom of Ukraine and Russia against Putin’s regime.

Russia planned to destroy Ukraine within two weeks. However, the war has been going on for a year and a half and is confidently moving to Russian territory. Russia’s areas adjacent to Ukraine have long been the scene of hostilities. About half of the local population has already left Belgorod and Belgorod region of the Russian Federation. What else could one hope for when in the border Russian villages and cities are deployed Russian troops shelling Ukraine! Of course, they get retaliatory strikes. Therefore, those villages and cities are partially or completely destroyed. Moreover, not only by Ukrainian, but first of all — by Russian troops themselves. Recall how during the First and Second Chechen wars in the 1990s–2000s, the Russian troops completely destroyed Chechnya, and with it the nearby areas of Dagestan, Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories. About 280 thousand civilians died there.. This is the data of a closed investigation by the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, conducted at a time when the Russian Parliament still had at least some legitimacy.

I will give only two examples of Moscow’s destruction of its own citizens in Russian territories. In 1996, Chechen patriots liberated the town of Kizliar in Dagestan. After the attack on the city by Russian troops, 250 inhabitants left it. But the Russians caught them and killed them with artillery and Grad rockets in the village of Pervomaiske. In June 2023, the same strike was struck by Russian troops on the town of Shebekino in Belgorod region, where Russian rebels had entered. The city was completely destroyed along with civilians. At the same time, such criminal acts of Moscow do not stop true Russian patriots. They organize sabotage against military units and enterprises, buildings of military commissariats and occupation authorities, as well as transport infrastructure. And it is also a contribution to our common victory over totalitarian Russia.

A few more words about the actions of our UAVs on the territory of the Russian Federation. Needless to mention their attacks on the positions of Russian troops near the Ukrainian border. Much has already been destroyed there, and what is left is being destroyed now. Our unmanned aerial vehicles reach criminal decision-making centers in Moscow. Everyone is well aware of drone strikes on the buildings of Moscow City, where the ministries of economic development, industry and trade, as well as digital development, communications and mass communications are located. The Kremlin propagandists call them “civilian objects”. But in reality they all work for war.

At Russian airfields, strategic aviation is also being destroyed by our drones. It already rises into the sky significantly less often than before, as evidenced by the number of strikes on our state. Ukrainian UAVs reach all airfields of Russian strategic aircrafts in the European part of Russia. Although there are not so many of those aircrafts already. Officially, there are two divisions and one separate regiment. All in all, there are about 90 Tu-22s, 60 Tu-95s and 20 Tu-160s. Of these, they can use in the sky: no more than nine or ten Tu-22s every day and two or three Tu-95s several times a month. The Russians can use the Tu-160 no more than once or twice a year.

Our UAVs are destroying them. But the real reason for this poor state of Russian strategic aviation is technical problems. The “youngest” of them is at least thirty-five years old, while the “oldest” is already over seventy. The Tu-95 began to be manufactured in Stalin’s times. But now they cannot be maintained, let alone manufactured. Because the relevant enterprises no longer exist since the early 1990s. And this is also our victory, since up to 60 % of components for Russian strategic aircrafts were manufactured in Ukraine.

And where is the Russian air defense, which should protect Russia and its troops in the occupied territories of Ukraine? We can simply compare it with the effectiveness of Ukrainian air defense. American and European-made air defense systems have already completely “closed” Kyiv. None of the Russian missiles or UAVs reach our capital. Only their fragments, which also have to fall somewhere. Now we are also “closing” Odesa. The wreckage of Russian missiles is still falling on it. But they will no longer be able to cause critical damage to our Black Sea ports and grain reserves.

In August 2023, Moscow withdrew from the Grain Deal. And what did it achieve? The remnants of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, together with all aviation of the Southern Military District of the Russian Armed Forces, cannot block Ukrainian ports. Cargo ships with our grain pass by Russian warships, and they can do nothing about that. This is understandable. Russia can’t compete with such really powerful states as, for example, Turkey, which has become one of the guarantors of the export of Ukrainian grain to the world market.

Assistance to Ukraine will continue to be provided. All the leading countries of the world are on our side, as shown by the meetings and summits of the UN General Assembly, the Group of Seven, NATO and the European Union in recent years. And in August 2023, Saudi Arabia hosted a summit on the principles of restoring a sustainable and just peace for Ukraine. Unfortunately, such measures have not yet created conditions for peace, but once again they showed the true balance of power in the modern world.

The leaders in it are the United States and China. But there is no place for Russia. Not only it failed to become a “great world power”, but it cannot even become part of the Third World. Moscow began to build a new, “fourth world” consisting of international outcasts like it. This is what attempts to realize neo-imperial ambitions lead to in today’s normal world.

It is very difficult time for us. And we still have to spend a lot of energy for our victory. But, thirty-two years ago, after the collapse of the USSR, even the United States doubted Ukraine’s ability to become a truly independent state and adhered to the idea of including it in Russia’s sphere of influence. So far, Ukraine has proved that it has become a truly independent state, which is in the center of the world’s attention.

All this was achieved at an extremely high price and with the sacrifices of our people. But Heroes don’t die. They just go to the Heavenly Hundred and remain in our memories and souls.

Glory to Ukraine!