As all Ukrainians celebrate Independence Day, 19-year-old student Yuliia Vyshnivska was warned of a heightened threat of Russian attacks.
But that didn’t stop her and hundreds of others from taking to an exposed rooftop in central Kiev to watch an open-air music performance in a show of defiance.
“I heard the Americans warning on the radio that the Russians are going to bomb you today, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, they want to kill us,'” she said, as the setting sun illuminated the patterns on her traditional clothing. Shivanka.
“But we’re used to it and know we live in this dangerous situation, so we’re not afraid.”
As a dozen black-clad orchestral musicians belted out a high-octane version of Ukrainian classics, I mentioned one thing that was different from their last two Independence Days in the war: Ukraine had now moved in and occupied Russian territory.
“When we saw the news from Kursk in the Russian region, it was an amazing event. It was like a miracle for us. We are very happy about it,” Ms Vishnevska said explain.
She said Russians on the border were now suffering, displaced and at risk as a natural consequence of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine two and a half years ago.
“From that moment we started hating them and now…we want to kill them. It’s too bad. I understand it’s wrong for humans to say this, but we hate them and we can’t think any other way because they want to Kill us.
President Volodymyr Zelensky took part in a series of Independence Day events in the capital, delivering a pre-recorded speech in the Sumy region – just across the border from newly acquired Russian territory.
“Russia has launched a war against us. It has violated not only the borders of sovereignty, but also the boundaries of cruelty and common sense,” he told his people.
“It endlessly seeks one thing: to destroy us. What the enemy brought to our land has now returned to its homeland.
Nearly three weeks after the Kursk invasion, Ukraine has consolidated much of the Russian land it quickly captured in the raid.
On August 6, an estimated 10,000 elite Ukrainian troops crossed the border, make more progress That’s a few days shorter than Russia’s victory in Ukraine so far this year.
Since the operation began, the BBC has been in contact with Ukrainian fighters currently in Russia.
The pseudonym Serhi revealed in the latest news to us that the current situation is even more serious.
“Russia has become more powerful. We see it in the number of drones, artillery and aviation attacks. Their sabotage and reconnaissance teams are also coming into action,” he wrote.
All this meant more casualties for the Ukrainians, he said.
“At the beginning of the operation we were on the upswing. We had minimal losses. Now we lost a lot of people due to Russian firepower. Moreover, the Russians here are fighting for their land, just like we are fighting for ours Like fighting for land.
Serhi said his previous elation was giving way to some skepticism.
“Many of us do not understand the significance of this operation. It is one thing to fight for Kharkov and Zaporozhye. It is another thing for the Kursk region, and we do not need it.
President Zelensky has said that the purpose of the Kursk operation was to capture Russian soldiers, which led to the prisoner exchange and 115 Ukrainians released Saturday — among other goals he could not disclose.
He also said that the operation was a preventive strike aimed at preventing Russia from attacking Sumei.
Although the Kursk invasion brought a sense of justice and revenge, it remained a risky strategy for Kiev.
Quick gains must be combined with losses in eastern Ukraine, where Russia continues to make gains in a hard-fought battle.
Moscow’s troops are closing in on the city of Pokrovsk, which before the fighting was home to about 60,000 people.
It is the largest city in the Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control and an important hub for the defenders.
“It’s a very difficult situation,” Nazar Voytenkov, 23, a former television reporter who now defends Pokro, told us on a broken phone line. Volunteers from the 33rd Mechanized Brigade in Vsk.
I asked him if he knew that Russian troops were being diverted to defend their own territory.
“No, no, I don’t feel that way. I think Russia has a lot of military resources in the Kursk region and elsewhere in Russia, and they are using those resources in this operation launched by the Ukrainian military.
I asked if this eased pressure on Ukrainian forces in the region – Kyiv’s main hope.
“I don’t think it’s gotten any easier. We still have enemies on all sides, and just last week they were trying to get closer again,” he explained.
“They used about 10 armored vehicles and infantry to capture our position, but we defended it well. We won the battle and now we await their next battle. So no, they are still here.
Recent successes on Russian soil have certainly energized this weekend’s celebrations, but Ukraine’s path to next year’s Independence Day is unclear and remains fraught with danger and uncertainty.
“This is just a monotonous, monotonous genocide,” Alexander Mehed, one of Ukraine’s leading writers, declared calmly.
We met him in a huge exhibition hall that used to be the Lenin Museum. He had just completed a lecture on his new book, which explores how the country’s great classical writers would have viewed the recent Russian invasion.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a better location to symbolize Ukraine’s growth since independence in 1991 and its determination not to be dragged back into Moscow’s orbit.
Talking about Russia, Mihed said: “They want every missile attack to be called ‘another missile attack.’ They want the world to get used to it, to make it normal, to make it normal. So this will be Ordinary genocide’.
I asked him what hope Ukrainians could have as they spend the next 12 months leading up to the next Independence Day.
“It’s time to get a clear understanding of what true patriotism is. We know what that looks like,” he said.
His argument was that despite the mental and physical trauma and deep collective grief, it was everyone’s responsibility to stay strong and ensure Ukraine’s survival.
“You will definitely be tired, everything can be frustrating, but you still have to save your country,” the Ukrainian writer said.
Additional reporting by Kyla Herrmannsen, Anna Chornous and Anastasia Levchenko
