President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has vowed his country will fight Russian troops "until the end" as Ukraine marked its independence amid a war with its neighbor 31 years after leaving the Moscow-dominated Soviet Union.
"During these six months, we changed history, changed the world, and changed ourselves... We started to respect ourselves. We understood that despite any help and support, no one but us will fight for our independence. And we united," Zelenskiy said in an anniversary address on August 24, which coincides with the passing of six months since Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
"It doesn't matter to us what kind of army you have; what matters to us is our land. We will fight for it until the end," he added.
Ukrainians, and much of the world, are bracing for a prolonged war after Russian forces were pushed back at the start of what Moscow describes as a "special military operation" and the fall of Kyiv was prevented.
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Western military sources now say Russian forces are making little headway in their offensive operation in Ukraine's eastern and southern territories, comparing the fighting to the slow, bloody, attritional fighting of World War I.
Since the fighting broke out, some 7 million people have fled Ukraine, while Western nations have imposed sweeping financial and technological sanctions on Russia over its aggression, battering a range of economic sectors from auto production and information technology to travel and pushing the nation into recession.
The 44-year-old Zelenskiy acknowledged the "difficult" impact on Ukraine, "but we clenched our fists fighting for our fate."
"Every new day is a new reason not to give up. Because, having gone through so much, we have no right not to reach the end. What is the end of the war for us? We used to say: peace. Now we say: victory," he said, adding that the war won't end until all of Ukraine, including Russia-backed separatist regions in the east and Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014, is under Kyiv's control.
"We will put our hands up only once: when we will celebrate our victory. The whole of Ukraine. Because we do not trade our lands and our people," he said.
"For us, Ukraine is all of Ukraine. All 25 regions, without any concessions or compromises. We do not know these words; they were destroyed by missiles on February 24."