Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has praised Ukrainians for withstanding four years of Russian attacks with “immense courage”, saying Moscow has failed to break their spirit or win the war it started.
Zelenskyy delivered the remarks on Tuesday in an address marking the anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, as Ukraine endures punishing winter attacks on its energy grid and struggles to make progress in peace talks.
Recommended Stories
list of 4 itemsend of list
“We have every right to say: We have defended our independence. We have not lost our statehood,” Zelenskyy said. “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin has not achieved his goals. He has not broken Ukrainians. He has not won this war.”
In a show of support, more than a dozen senior European officials – including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and seven prime ministers – travelled to Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, to mark the anniversary of the conflict.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, upended life for millions of Ukrainians and sparked far-reaching security concerns across Europe. The number of soldiers killed, wounded or missing on both sides could reach two million by spring, analysts say.
The European Union pledged continued “political, financial, economic, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support” for Ukraine. Von der Leyen said the bloc will deliver one way or another on a planned 90-billion-euro ($105bn) loan for Ukraine, which has so far been blocked by Hungary.
Leaders of the Group of Seven powers, which include the United States, also reaffirmed their “unwavering support for Ukraine”. In a joint statement, they threw their weight behind ongoing peace negotiations led by US President Donald Trump, which they said Europe had a “leading role to play in”.
More than 30 leaders in the “Coalition of the Willing” supporting Ukraine called for Russia to agree to an “unconditional ceasefire”.
Questions over territory, security
Al Jazeera’s Audrey MacAlpine, reporting from Kyiv, said the core of Zelenskyy’s message was the Ukrainian people “have a right to defend themselves and their independence, especially when that independence is being called into question now amid the ongoing peace negotiations”.
Russia now controls 19.5 percent of Ukraine’s territory, including 7 percent it took before the 2022 full-scale invasion. But its progress has been slow and painstaking since 2023, morphing into a bloody battle of attrition centred on the mineral-rich Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, which Moscow wants to annex.
According to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, DC-based think tank, Russian forces captured 0.79 percent of Ukrainian territory in the past year of fighting, their largest advance since 2022.
Russian and Ukrainian officials began their first direct talks, mediated by the US, in January but appear to remain deadlocked on major issues of territory and security guarantees for Ukraine.
Moscow wants Kyiv to cede control of the Donbas, its industrial heartland, which Moscow mostly occupies but has failed to seize completely. Ukraine has rejected that demand and said it will not sign a deal without security guarantees from its allies, including the US, to deter a future Russian invasion.
There is no date set for the next round of talks, but an aide to Zelenskyy said they could take place at the end of the week.
‘Dignified, lasting peace’
Zelenskyy on Tuesday said Ukraine is ready to do “everything” it can to secure peace but won’t “betray” the price paid by Ukrainians throughout the conflict.
“We want peace – strong, dignified and lasting peace,” he said, adding that any agreement “must not simply be signed. It must be accepted by Ukrainians.”
“We cannot, we must not, give it away, forget it, betray it.”
In a video address to the European Parliament, Zelenskyy called on the EU to accelerate Kyiv’s admission to the union.
Yuriy Sak, a former adviser to Ukraine’s defence minister, told Al Jazeera that “Ukraine should not be giving up anything” further in the negotiations because it already has made more concessions than Ukrainians wanted.
He accused Russia of holding onto a “maximalist and unrealistic” position.
“Therefore, unfortunately at this stage, the peace process has not produced the results that Ukraine wants, that the world wants,” Sak said.
“Because we see Russia’s unwillingness to approach the negotiating process in good faith, we continue to build up our defence industry. We continue to strengthen our Euro-Atlantic alliances.”
‘Pushing themselves to the edge’
The Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank estimated that Russia has suffered 325,000 soldier deaths from February 2022 to December 2025 – the largest number of soldier deaths for any major power in any conflict since World War II.
The Kremlin acknowledged it has not fully achieved its war goals and said it would continue fighting until it does.
In a televised address, Putin said Ukraine and its allies are “pushing themselves to the edge” in their determination to defeat Moscow, a move he said they will “regret”.
Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapovalova, reporting from Moscow, outlined Russia’s endgame.
“It wants the entirety of Donbas, plus Zaporizhia and Kherson, to be recognised as Russian. It wants to continue pressuring Ukraine, and it’s not going to give up. Obviously, Ukraine doesn’t want to give up its territories either.”
Foreign policy analyst Andrey Kortuno said Russia’s leaders would benefit from such territorial concessions.
“Of course, it is something the Russian leadership can claim as a victory – that Russia will have four more regions and an additional couple of million people,” he told Al Jazeera.
The mood on the streets of Kyiv on Tuesday was subdued with a few dozen people gathering at a ceremony in the central square and soldiers carrying flags to remember the fallen in silence. War weariness is many Ukrainians’ prevailing emotion.
