Statehood is the highest expression of a people’s independence and the highest responsibility for their own destiny. It is the ability to build and the readiness to defend one’s own culture, and to write history in one’s own language.
Ukrainian statehood has long been nurtured by those unafraid to send patrols to the borderlands. Every outpost set in the steppe, every voyage into the open sea, every mountain pass held against the odds became a guarantee of statehood.
Today, Ukraine is free because generations before us fought for it. Time and again, in times of trial, the trident rose on our banners. Now we hold those banners for those who came before us and those yet to come.
