Ukraine’s day of independence, 24th August, is being met by apprehension as much as celebration by Ukrainians and their supporters worldwide. The Russian regime has threatened retribution with strikes against civilian targets across the country. US diplomats have been ordered out of Kyiv, just in case.
August 24th is an odd sort of anniversary for the Russians, too, and without much cause for thanksgiving. Six months ago to the day the Russian army launched into Ukraine on the understanding that it would be a lightning ‘special military operation’. The offensive, as Putin tries to frame it, to remove the cabal of Volodymyr Zelensky and his neo-Nazi cohorts was to have been done and dusted by spring – so Ukrainians could return to their natural place among the peoples of Russia, at least according to the Putin version of history.
