Ukraine is alive. Ukraine lives. Ukraine fights. Ukraine advances, Ukraine overcomes the path. Ukraine gains. Ukraine works. Ukraine exists.
In his new year’s speech this week, Volodymyr Zelensky was characteristically bullish about his country’s prospects as the war heads towards its second anniversary next month and as the Ukrainian people descend into what many of us in the northern hemisphere – even without a war to contend with – think of as the bleakest months of winter.
Following some of the worst airstrikes of the war so far in recent weeks, Zelensky reminded his listeners that they had seen this all before last year – and faced it down. The cold, the dark, shortages of power and food. Uncertainty. He said: “Ukrainians will cope with any energy shortage as they have no shortage of resilience and courage. We did not fade away in the darkness. The darkness did not engulf us. We defeated the darkness.”
