Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky marked the 35th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence with a defiant address rejecting calls to surrender the Donbas, arguing that Russia has already suffered catastrophic battlefield losses and warning that Ukrainian forces will continue turning Russian reinforcements into “fertilizer for our fields.”
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky used an Independence Day address Monday to reject the idea of surrendering territory to Russia in exchange for ending the war, telling President Vladimir Putin that Ukraine will not give up the Donbas merely to spare hundreds of thousands of additional Russian troops from battlefield losses.
Zelensky made the remarks during a roughly 20-minute address to the Ukrainian nation commemorating the 35th anniversary of Ukraine’s declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
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The speech emphasized Ukrainian resistance more than four years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, with Zelensky portraying the country’s military and defense-industrial capacity as substantially stronger than Moscow anticipated when the war began.
“Putin made a big mistake” by invading Ukraine, Zelensky said.
He described the Ukrainian military as “the strongest in Europe, period” and said it is now supported by what he characterized as a “giant” domestic defense industry.
Zelensky also argued that Ukraine has demonstrated an ability to strike Russian forces far beyond the immediate front lines.
At sea, he said, Ukrainian operations are transforming elements of Russia’s fleet into “scrap metal,” while Ukrainian drones are delivering “Ukrainian justice” to targets deeper inside Russian-held territory and Russia itself.
The president framed the country’s endurance as extending beyond military equipment and manpower.
He said the love and national spirit of Ukrainians make the country “100 times stronger than Russian and 100 time stronger than all their tanks on parade.”
The sharpest portion of the address was directed at Moscow’s effort to persuade the United States and European governments that territorial concessions could bring the fighting to a rapid conclusion.
Zelensky accused Russia of attempting to “deceive” Europe and the United States by arguing that Ukraine’s surrender of the Donbas would allow the conflict to end quickly.
Ukraine will not relinquish its territory merely to save “the Kremlin half a million soldiers,” Zelensky said.
He then described the human cost Russia has already incurred during the invasion in stark terms, accusing the Kremlin of sacrificing an entire generation of Russians in pursuit of its territorial objectives.
Russia has “lost an entire generation, which you pushed into the meat grinder,” Zelensky said, adding that Ukraine’s military “turns the reinforcement of the Russian army into fertilizer for our fields.”
The reference to another half-million Russian troops potentially facing the battlefield appears consistent with assessments showing exceptionally high Russian casualties since the full-scale invasion began.
A study by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that the combined number of military casualties suffered by Russia and Ukraine had reached approximately 2 million during the four-and-a-half years of full-scale war.
The study estimated that roughly 1.4 million of those casualties were Russian.
Of that total, approximately 400,000 Russian troops were estimated to have been killed as of July, while about 1 million more were wounded or missing.
Those figures would make Russia’s losses in Ukraine greater than its combined casualties from every conflict it has fought since 1945, including the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
The overall scale of battlefield losses has also made the Russian invasion of Ukraine one of the deadliest wars involving a major military power since World War II.
Zelensky used those losses to reinforce his argument that Moscow’s demand for Ukrainian territory should not be accepted simply because continued resistance will impose additional casualties on Russian forces.
Rather than presenting territorial concessions as a humanitarian means of ending the bloodshed, Zelensky argued that responsibility for future Russian losses rests with the Kremlin if it continues prosecuting the invasion.
His remarks also challenged the premise that surrendering the Donbas would necessarily produce a durable peace.
Ukraine has repeatedly argued that conceding occupied or contested territory could reward Russian military aggression while leaving Moscow capable of rebuilding its forces and resuming the war later.
Zelensky’s Independence Day address therefore combined a broader celebration of Ukrainian sovereignty with a direct message to Putin and governments considering possible terms for ending the conflict.
He portrayed Ukraine as militarily stronger, more technologically capable and more deeply committed to independence than Russia expected in 2022, while rejecting the argument that Kyiv should surrender territory to reduce the number of Russian troops who may otherwise be killed or wounded.
With casualty estimates already reaching into the millions across both armies, Zelensky made clear that Ukraine does not intend to treat Russia’s mounting losses as a reason to concede land, instead arguing that Moscow can prevent further casualties by ending the invasion.
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