KYIV – On January 22, Ukraine celebrated the 102nd anniversary of the Ukrainian National Republic’s declaration of independence and the 101st of the proclamation of the unification of all Ukrainian lands. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used the occasion to reiterate what in recent weeks has become a leitmotif for him: the need for national consolidation and unity.
He had emphasized this theme – the urgency of constructing a modern Ukrainian political nation based on shared democratic values rather that ethnocentric ones – in his unconventional televised New Year’s address.