Kenya marks its ‘Mashujaa Day’ – Heroes’ Day – on October 20, every year.
This is the day when those who made sacrifices to help bring about an independent Kenya are remembered and celebrated.
As the Ukrainian Ambassador to Kenya, and on behalf of the people of Ukraine, I wish to salute all those heroes and to say that when I look at the peaceful and increasingly prosperous Kenya in which such sacrifices were made possible, I believe that these sacrifices were not in vain.
But thoughts of “Mashujaa Day”, for the Ukrainian community in Kenya, are also a reminder that at this very point in my country’s history; at a time when we too should be enjoying peace and working towards greater prosperity; Russia’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of my country has put us in a position where we are yet again fighting to remain a free people and a free nation.
Long after the centuries of global colonialism had ended, Ukraine is right now struggling to achieve what Kenya achieved in 1963: the right to choose its own path.
I am reminded that every single day, and for all the days since February 24, 2022, when Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Mashujaa Day reflections: Why Russia remains a colonial state Ukraine, Ukrainian “Shujaas” have been sacrificing their lives in defence of our nation.
It is a war which has seen many tragedies inflicted on the people of Ukraine. We have had Ukrainian children abducted and forcibly sent to remote parts of Russia.
We have had our most vital public infrastructure destroyed by Russian bombs.
We have had attacks on our capital city, Kyiv, as well as on various other important urban centres.
In recent months, a particularly cruel focus of Russia’s attacks on Ukraine has been our hospitals: first the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine’s largest paediatric facility famous for its treatment of cancer.
The destruction caused by this attack will take years to repair and to bring the hospital back to what it was before, as it is not just the building which was badly damaged, but also the specialised equipment within it.
In response to these attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the world to “pay attention to what Russia is targeting,” specifying that “ they are waging war on hospitals, civilian objects, and people’s lives,” Given this context then, it is clear that Russia is not interested in peace.
The Putin regime is still pursuing its agenda of seeking to bring an end to Ukraine’s existence as an independent nation.
Some would ask: If Russia is not interested in peace, then what is it that Russia wants? Why did it engage in this unprovoked aggression towards Ukraine?
All the evidence points to the simple fact that Russia is and has always been, a colonial power that, which as a matter of state policy constantly seeks to expand its borders at the expense of other countries.
And this goes back to the old Russian empire ( 1721 to 1917 ) which was later transformed after the Russian Revolution of 1917, into the USSR – which was still very much a colonial empire.
This cruel passion for taking over the sovereign lands of other nations, and controlling the lives of sovereign peoples, seems to be baked into Russia’s DNA.
No matter who rules in Moscow, countries which share a border with Russia will find that they are under threat of what is currently known as “Russification”.
For example, right now, Russia has adopted a new “state cultural policy strategy”, in which parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions were identified as top priority areas for forcing local populations to adopt the Russian language and culture.
This is yet more evidence of Moscow’s planned policy regarding the Russification and assimilation of the Ukrainian population in the temporarily occupied territories.
Russia has never wavered from its stated objective of eradicating all traces of an independent Ukrainian nation and of a sovereign Ukrainian people.
That is why today, as on every
other day since the invasion of
February 2022, Ukrainian “Shujaas”
will continue to resist the army of
the despotic regime in Moscow,
and to pay any price to preserve our
independence as a nation.