Ukrainian rescuers and firefighters paint during a drone attack on the construction of the Shukhevych Roman Memorial Museum in the Bilohorshcha district, on the outskirts of the western city of Lviv, Ukraine, early Jan. 1, 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EFE/MYKOLA TYS]
Russian drones on Monday (Jan. 1) attacked a university and museum linked to two of Ukraine’s greatest defenders of 20th-century national identity, forcing citizens to promise to repair the damage.
It hit on what would have been Bandera’s 115th birthday.
“Everything that’s been going on in our country, for so many years, do they (Russia) feel better because of it? Don’t they have enough land? Natural resources? What is it that they need?”
Moscow still invokes Bandera’s call to back up its claims that it invaded Ukraine in February 2022 to “denazify” the country, pointing to the fact that some nationalists first cooperated with German forces in their war against the Russians; the Nazis.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Russian forces are suffering heavy losses and that the idea that Moscow is winning the nearly two-year-old war is just an “unfounded feeling” about reality.
He has provided no evidence to back up his claim, but Western military analysts agree that Russia is paying a heavy price in men and aircraft for minor achievements in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month Russia’s position was improving and it would not stop what he calls the “special military operation” until its objectives, including Ukraine’s “denazification, demilitarisation and its neutral status”, have been achieved.
On the other hand, he praised the “great result” of the breaking of the Russian blockade on the Black Sea through Ukrainian forces, thus allowing grain exports a new direction along its southern coast.
As for Ukraine facing obstacles in the United States and the European Union, more is wanted to be done to convince the world that protecting Ukraine means protecting the world, Zelenskyy said.