Irish Examiner view: Ukraine has the confidence to keep its independence 

Dozens of wrecked Russian military vehicles — armoured cars and tanks and artillery launchers — made up the defiant centrepiece of Ukraine's independence day in Kyiv

The wrecked Russian vehicles and treadless tanks in Kyiv made a mockery of traditional Kremlin displays of military might. Picture: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

Khreschatyk St in downtown Kyiv was packed with Russian tanks yesterday. Not the tanks of a victorious army, as Russian president Vladimir Putin might have hoped, but largely burnt-out carcasses.

The procession of more than 70 wrecked armoured vehicles, treadless tanks, and destroyed artillery launchers was a strange reversal of what Putin’s illegal and savage invasion had hoped to achieve. 

For Ukrainians, the parade demonstrated — on their country’s 31st Independence Day celebrations — the strength of their country’s resolve and their still-uncertain freedom.

It also marked six months since 4.15am on February 24 when Russian missiles began pounding Ukrainian air defences, ammunition dumps, airfields, radar batteries, and army bases in what was the start of the Russian ‘special military operation’. The initial plan envisaged the immediate seizure of Kyiv, the Ukrainian seat of power.

In what transpired to be a humiliating defeat of Putin’s massed forces, it has since emerged that while the country’s leadership had downplayed US warnings about the likelihood of invasion, it had taken decisive steps to allow it to withstand the Russian bludgeon. 

Men and munitions had been moved to safety and that, along with what transpired to be a profound will to fight, stood to the defenders.

Yesterday, the Ukrainians were more tuned into Washington’s intelligence warnings and wary of Russian anger at their continued resistance and bloody-minded belligerence. 

Captured Russian military vehicles on show in Kyiv on Ukraine's independence day. Locals took selfies in front of the wreckage of Russia's military might. Picture: Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

They feared massed missile attacks on Kyiv, not only because they had frustrated the Russian Bear, but also because they stood accused of murdering the daughter of a Putin associate.

Although the air warnings went off yesterday morning across Kyiv, there was no sign of any Russian aggression, but the city was ready for whatever the enemy was prepared to throw at it. 

Yet, none of the fears of the populace stopped them from writing unprintable messages for Putin on the ruins of his armoured columns and taking gloating selfies with the wrecked materiel.

Ukraine might not yet have stopped fighting for its freedom, but yesterday in Kyiv, it demonstrated yet again to Russia and the wider world that it has the confidence to keep it.