As Ukraine’s independence day from Russia approaches (August 24), all eyes are on the Ukraine war again. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has already said that Russia might try to do something to reduce the symbolic and morale-boosting value of Ukrainian independence day. On the eve of the important day for Ukraine, WION’s Mohammed Saleh spoke with Yuriy Sak, advisor to Ukraine’s defence minister.
WION: Mr Sak this a crucial moment in terms of what is happening in the war. Tomorrow marks exactly six months since Russia invaded Ukraine. Also tomorrow is your 31st independence anniversary from the former Soviet Union. And in keeping with this, Ukraine has said that it has received intelligence that Russia may try to do something reallu ugly. What is the threat you perceive from Russia tomorrow?
Yuriy Sak: Hello and thank you for inviting me. Indeed tomorrow is a great national celebration for our country. It’s our independence day and this is a celebration that we take very seriously. This will also be the day when we will have six months of aggressive war against Ukraine. And I want to stress that this is a war Russian aggressor was hoping to conduct in three days. They were planning to conquer the whole of Ukraine in maximum of seven days. And our Minister of Defence Oleksiy Reznikov, he personally saw, in the Russian tanks which were left by the occupiers in Kyiv, parade uniforms. They were planning to conduct this war very quickly, to destroy Ukrainian leadership, and to occupy our territory completely. Instead of that what we have now is parade of destroyed Russian tanks on Kyiv central street.
We as a nation have been very very heroically defending our country and European freedom from the Russian aggressor. Ahead of tomorrow’s celebrations, we are of course now on high-alert because Russia in addition to being a war criminal and terrorist state has a very strange way of treating certain dates. Ukraine’s independence is something that Russia wants to destroy. It wants to destroy Ukrainian people. This is why we are referring to this as genocide. And this is why we are calling on the international community to recognise Russia officially as state sponsor of terrorism.
So tomorrow is a big day. But I want to also stress that we have been living in an atmosphere of missile terror from Russia for last six months. Every day, Russia conducts missile strikes on Ukrainian cities. Every day, peaceful Ukrainian citizens are dying in these missile strikes. So in a sense, tomorrow will be, unfortunately, an ordinary day in the new normal we’ve been living in since February 24. But we hope that our fears will not come true. And we hope that tomorrow’s celebrations will not be spoilt by another atrocity on the part of Russia.
Watch | August 24 marks Ukraine’s 31st Independence Day; fear of fresh Russian strikes looms
WION: This is the issue that a lot of people are talking about around the world, especially in the aftermath of what has happened to Darya Dugina, the daughter of Alexander Dugin, the philosopher and the far-right thinker, someone who is considered to be the brain of Vladimir Putin. Russia has unequivocally accused Ukraine of carrying out her assassination. What does Ukraine have to say for it?
Yuriy Sak: Our official position is very simple. We are not Russians. We are not terrorists. We do not fight with civillian population. We even don’t fight with civillians who are hateful towards Ukraine. Because as you probably know, Mr Dugin used to say that Ukrainians must be killed and killed. And his late daughter who was killed in that accident, we are prone to believe that this was a false flag terrorist operation. Our intelligence agencies say that this most probably was an insider job. It was a provocation by the Russians. We do not carry killings of those people because we are a civilized democracy. We fight our enemy on the battlefield. And we value their human life very highly.
WION: I need to ask you about what has happened in Crimea over the course of last 10-12 days. Because your President Volodymyr Zelensky has been saying that Ukraine will stage a counter-attack, that Ukraine will re-conquer Crimea which has been occupied by Russia. What we’ve seen over the course of last 10-15 days, that there has been a series of mysterious and unexplained explosions which have targetted Russian military installations. Ukraine hasn’t directly claimed responsibility for a lot of these attacks that have taken place in Crimea. But is Ukraine behind these explosions?
Yuriy Sak: Let’s be clear. Crimea is a sovereign territory of Ukraine. It is an internationally recognised territory of Ukraine which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. This is an internationally recognised fact. Point number 2, we have two things to say to Russian occupiers, and this has been our position all the while. Since Crimea is part of Ukraine, we will liberate it sooner or later. It just depends on how quickly we receive interational assistance and high-precision weaponry.
Third point, all we have to say to Russian occupiers who are in Crimea as well as other temporarily occupied parts of Ukraine, they have to get out from our country.
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