The Rear That Must Hold: Thirty-Five Years of Reaffirmed Independence
By:Giorgio Provinciali
Live from Ukraine ??
In the month when most people are focused on summer vacations, we cant help but think about how murderous the upcoming winter will be. For this reason, we want to sincerely thank those who think of us and support us. If our voices continue to fly freely, it is mainly because of you.
August 24 marks thirty-five years since the Act of 1991, which restored a modern national sovereignty proclaimed by the Ukrainian Peoples Republic on January 22, 1918.From its history Ukraine draws a lesson that matters today more than ever. Staying united.Even when it would rather live as a civil society in peacetime. On the eve of the thirteenth anniversary lived in wartime, the fifth of the full-scale invasion, russia is striking shopping centers, homes, logistics, and energy.
Stanislav Although the legal name of the holiday remains Independence Day, because on August 24, 1991, the Verkhovna Rada formallyadoptedthe Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, on August 24, 2026, Ukraine does not celebrate the thirty-fifth year of its independence. It celebrates the thirty-fifth anniversary of its reaffirmation, of its restoration after decades of Soviet domination. The historical meaning of that decision runs far deeper: the modern Ukrainian state had in fact already proclaimed its full sovereignty on January 22, 1918 that is, more than a century ago.The Ukrainian Institute of National Memory itselfdefines1991 as the restoration of state independence and identifies 1918 as the first proclamation of Ukrainian independence in the twentieth century.
The distinction is substantive. In 1991 Ukraine gained effective independence from the Soviet Union through an immediately operative legislative act and its subsequent popular ratification. In historical terms, it recovered a sovereignty already exercised, internationally recognized, and then suppressed by force of arms. Speaking of reaffirmation does not mean constructing an imaginary administrative continuity between 1918 and 1991. The institutions that declared independence thirty-five years ago came out of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The continuity with the Ukrainian Peoples Republic was political, historical, and symbolic, grounded in the survival of the idea of statehood and later formalized by the Ukrainian government in exile.
The history of Ukrainian statehood, moreover, long predates the twentieth century. The modern notion of the nation-state belongs to the contemporary age, while its institutional genealogy includes Kyivan Rus, the Kingdom of Galicia and Volhynia, the legal traditions developed under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Zaporizhzhian Sich, and the Cossack Hetmanate. From these experiences, contemporary Ukraine inherited Kyiv as its political center, the trident of the Riurykid dynasty, the name of its currency, military traditions, and elective forms of government. Over the course of the nineteenth century, as happened for many European peoples, this historical inheritance became a modern national project founded on territory, language, culture, and political representation.
After the fall of tsarism, the Ukrainian Central Rada was born in Kyiv in March 1917. The Third Universal of November 20 established the Ukrainian Peoples Republic, initially conceived within a future democratic federation with post-tsarist russia. The Bolshevik coup in Petrograd changed the picture radically. The Bolsheviks failed in their attempt to take control of the Rada, created an alternative Ukrainian Soviet government in Kharkiv, and advanced militarily from outside, supported by local insurrections. The Rada responded with the Fourth Universal, dated January 22, 1918, which declared the Ukrainian Peoples Republic a free, sovereign, and independent state. On February 9 the Republic signed its own international treaty at Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers.
What happened in 1918 was no mere declaration of intent. Ukraine organized a parliament, a government, legislation, an army, a diplomatic service, a currency, and national symbols. The trident became the state emblem, blue and yellow formed the flag, and Shche ne vmerla Ukraina was adopted as the anthem. In April 1918, the republican form was replaced by the Ukrainian State of Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskyi, which developed the administration, universities, and the Academy of Sciences. At the end of that same year, the Directory restored the Ukrainian Peoples Republic. On January 22, 1919, the Act of Union with the Western Ukrainian Peoples Republic was proclaimed in Kyiv. Wartime conditions prevented the full administrative merger of the two apparatuses, without erasing the principle of Ukrainian territorial unity.The first modern independence was overwhelmed by a war fought simultaneously against Bolshevik forces, russian White armies, and other armies present on Ukrainian territory, aggravated by internal divisions, diplomatic isolation, and a typhus epidemic that decimated Ukrainian forces.
Ukraines wars of independence are lost in the rear.
Historiography has a name for the dissolution of 1919: otamanshchyna that is, the rule of the otamans. Within months the Directorys authorityshatteredinto dozens of local commands that recognized the government on alternate days, requisitioned on their own account, and negotiated on their own account. Nykyfor Hryhoriv, an otaman of the Republic in December 1918, went over to the Bolsheviks in February, took Odesa from Entente forces on their behalf, and in Maymutiniedagainst them too, proclaiming himself otaman of Ukraine; Nestor Makhno built an order of his own in the south; otaman Zeleny raised the countryside south of Kyiv against the Directory, fought the Bolsheviks, and in September returned to recognize the government he had fought. Bands and units of every banner including some nominally loyal to the Republic stainedthemselves with the anti-Jewish pogroms that killed tens of thousands of people and burned, in the eyes of the Entente, the moral credit of the Ukrainian state. The political class, meanwhile, consumed itself in its own schisms: Vynnychenko left the Directory in February; in November the Galician Army went over to Denikin; a few months later Petliura would sign with Warsaw the separate deal that Galicians read as a betrayal. By late summer the government administered little more than Kamianets-Podilskyi and the railways it could still travel. The army of the Republic kept fighting even with no territory left at its back the First Winter Campaigncarriedit for months on raids behind enemy lines and so outlived, for a time, the state that should have sustained it.
Hence the lesson of 1919, worth remembering today more than ever:Ukraine loses statehood when the rear fragments.
The front, in that war, was the last thing to give way. By early 1920 most of Ukraine was under Bolshevik control. The Treaty of Riga of 1921 consolidated the division of Ukrainian lands, while the army and government of the Peoples Republic were forced into exile. The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic formally retained borders, institutions, and a nominal sovereignty; its military, political, and state apparatus depended on moscow. It later became one of the founding republics of the USSR and, in 1945, one of the founding members of the United Nations.
The consequences of the defeat were concrete. The Ukrainian population lost sovereign institutions capable of deciding on security, agriculture, the economy, language, and its own demographic composition. In the decades that followed, policies set by the Soviet center imposed collectivization, requisitions, the Holodomor, political repressions, deportations, and progressive russification. The loss of independence made it possible to apply these policies with no Ukrainian government answerable to the population.The State Center of the Ukrainian Peoples Republic survived meanwhile in exile, maintaining for nearly seventy-two years the claim to the restoration of sovereignty.
The path that led to 1991 formally began on July 16, 1990, when the Verkhovna Radaadoptedthe Declaration of State Sovereignty.The document affirmed the supremacy, autonomy, completeness, and indivisibility of republican power on Ukrainian territory, together with independence in external relations. After the attempted coup in moscow in August 1991, the Ukrainian Parliamentdeclaredthe country an independent, democratic state, establishing that only the Ukrainian Constitution and Ukrainian laws were valid on its territory.
The parliamentary decision was put to the people on December 1, 1991. In the referendum, 84.18 percent of eligible voters took part and 90.32 percent voted in favor of the Act of Independence. The majority prevailed in each of the countrys twenty-seven administrative units. In Crimea, 54.19 percent voted yes; in Sevastopol, 57.07. In the oblast of Donetsk, Luhansk, Odesa, and Kharkiv approval exceeded 80 percent; in most other regions it passed 90 or 95 percent.Independence was therefore not imposed on the east or the south by Kyiv, by Galicia, or by the West. It was a national choice, made also in the regions that russian propaganda would later describe as foreign to the Ukrainian project. In the days that immediately followed came the first international recognitions; even russia recognized Ukraine within the first week.
The most significant passage for understanding the wordreaffirmationcame on August 22, 1992. Mykola Plaviuk, president of the Ukrainian Peoples Republic in exile,relinquishedthe powers of the State Center and recognized the Ukraine proclaimed in 1991 as the continuator of the state and national traditions of the Republic of 1918. The delegation handed over to the authorities in Kyiv the acts of cessation, the declaration of succession, and the historic insignia preserved in exile. It was a political and symbolic transfer, with no claim to automatically substitute the rules of international succession, and it closed an institutional continuity maintained abroad since the end of 1920.
The security order built after 1991 was supposed to make this sovereignty irreversible. Ukraine acceded to the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear-weapons state and committed to eliminating the Soviet weapons on its territory. In the Budapest Memorandum of December 5, 1994, russia, the United Kingdom, and the United Statesreaffirmedtheir commitment to respect Ukraines independence, sovereignty, and existing borders, and to refrain from the use of force against its territorial integrity or political independence. The occupation of Crimea and the start of the war in 2014, followed by the full-scale invasion of 2022, violated precisely those commitments. The United Nations General Assembly confirmed Ukraines territorial integrity in 2014 and formally defined the war begun in 2022 as an aggression against Ukraine.
It is within this historical continuity that Ukraine approaches the thirty-fifth anniversary of the reaffirmation of its independence.
In Kryvyi Rih, russian droneshitthe Soniachna Halereia shopping complex in two waves. The second strike came roughly half an hour after the first impact, and the fire broke out when emergency operations were already underway. In the latest toll that the head of the citys Defense Council, Oleksandr Vilkul,updatedon the morning of August 23, sixteen people are dead and 140 wounded. Twenty-five of the wounded are children. Vilkul declared August 23 a day of mourning in the city, the day after the mourning observed across the entire Dnipropetrovsk oblast. The distance in time between our presence and the devastation is now measured in days. In the Zaporizhzhia district, russian forces struck seven times, damaging private homes. The initial toll of two dead subsequentlyroseto three people killed and fifteen wounded, including a child. Less than twenty days ago wereportedfrom that very district, explaining that it was a zone of the highest risk. In Kherson, on the night between August 21 and 22, russian dronesburnedand almost completely destroyed the Oscar shopping center in the central district. For a city subjected daily to artillery and drones, the Oscar was the last shopping center still operating. Once again, not long ago we had filed a report from that very place. In the Poltava oblast, russiastruckthe distribution center of the Aurora retail chain twice. The second strike came while emergency services were already at work. In the same region the energy infrastructure of DTEK Naftogaz was also hit,haltingthe operation of the gas extraction facility.
The geography of our work in recent weeks now coincides with the map of the targets. It shows with macabre precision howrussia is trying to make living in Ukraine more costly, more dangerous, and materially harder.
Independence, under these conditions, takes on its most concrete meaning. It consists in the capacity to govern the territory, protect the population, keep infrastructure open, produce energy, supply the cities, and prevent an external power from deciding where citizens may live, work, or gather. It is precisely this capacity that was lost after the defeat of the Ukrainian Peoples Republic and recovered in 1991.
The current war is therefore about the material survival of that decision.The precedent of 1919 explains what is at stake.The first modern independence was smothered because Ukrainian institutions were overwhelmed by a war on multiple fronts, deprived of sufficient international support, and hollowed out from within, otaman after otaman, schism after schism.
More than seventy years followed in which the fundamental decisions about Ukraines life were made elsewhere. The year 1991 returned to the state recognized borders, institutions, international representation, and a popular legitimacy extending to every one of its regions: compared with 1919, it wasthe victory of a united rearthe territorial unanimity the Peoples Republic had lacked.
Today, after four and a half years of full-scale invasion, russia is left with a single theory of victory, which is the same as in 1919: the fragmentation of the Ukrainian rear.
At the front, moscowbuyskilometers at the price of tens of thousands of men a month; the attacks documented in these hours are the arm of the strategy aimed at the rear, and the bet on internal fracture political, institutional, informational is its silent arm. One need only read how the megaphones of russian propaganda in the West write their headlines to understand how street movements and wartime anti-corruption campaigns are being instrumentalized. In a war whose front hasdissolvedinto zones of mutual infiltration, the rear belongs to the battlefield, and its cohesion is the variable moscow watches most closely. The Budapest Memorandum was supposed to consolidate the achievement of 1991 through law and the commitments of the powers; the war shows how fragile agreements become when their observance is not backed by effective instruments of deterrence and defense, and how much the holding of the rear matters.
A country at war cannot reason like one at peace. Avoiding any possibility of fragmentation of the home front is vital.
Thirty-five years have passed since the reaffirmation of 1991, and one hundred and eight since the first modern proclamation of 1918. On August 24 Ukraine remembers the day it regained full possession of itself. In 2026 that freedom still has the faces of rescuers forced to work under the threat of a double tap, the price of civilians killed while buying what daily life required, and the voice of the sirens that precede a new ballistic strike by a few seconds. The reaffirmation of independence continues every day through the defense of the state and the will of its citizens to remain on their own land. Learning from history its hardest lesson do not let the home front come apart to preserve an independence claimed in 1918, confirmed by the entire country in 1991, and defended today against those trying once again to erase it.
In 1.641 days of war, we recorded over 300 videos from ground zero and wrote more than 3,000 articles at least 1,600 in English, and over 1,400 in Italian.
Were doing our best to provide genuine, first-hand reports from zones where almost no press dares to go. This means living in a kill zone constantly. We take the risk, but without your invaluable support, our voices would remain unheard and silent. Without brave people sharing our articles from afar, they would remain unread. Our reports would go unseen, and our efforts would be lost. Theres still a lot of work to do here, as the people around us are also in no better situation.
Were renewing our fundraising campaign and thanking everyone who joins us in helping to restore what Russia is destroying. Moving forward, not even with a small reimbursement for each article we write, is extremely challenging. Thats why we are grateful to all the kind people who support us and trust in our mission.
Even a small donation helps.
Well keep you updated on developments.
Thank you all, dear friends ??
必须守住的后方：恢复独立的三十五载
作者：Giorgio Provinciali
翻译：旺财球球
乌克兰前线报道??
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8月24日，是《1991年独立法案》三十五周年，该法案恢复了乌克兰人民共和国于1918年1月22日宣布建立的现代国家主权。乌克兰从自身历史中汲取出一条在今天比任何时候都更加重要的教训：保持团结。即使它只希望作为一个和平年代的公民社会生活，也必须如此。在战争持续的第十三个年头、全面入侵第五个年头前夕，俄罗斯正在袭击购物中心、民宅、物流设施和能源基础设施。
斯坦尼斯拉夫虽然这个节日的法定名称仍然是独立日，因为乌克兰最高拉达于1991年8月24日正式通过了《乌克兰独立宣言法案》，但在2026年8月24日，乌克兰庆祝的并不是独立的第三十五个年头，而是独立被重申的第三十五年、是在数十年苏联统治后重新获得主权的几年。这一决定的历史意义远比表面更加深刻：现代乌克兰国家事实上早在1918年1月22日就已经宣布了完全独立，距今已有一个多世纪。乌克兰国家记忆研究所本身也将1991年定义为国家独立的恢复，并将1918年认定为20世纪乌克兰首次宣布独立的年份。
（图：一名乌克兰士兵正在我们的国旗上签名??版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
这一差别具有实质意义。1991年，乌克兰通过一项立即生效的立法法案及其随后全民公投的批准，获得了脱离苏联的实际独立。从历史角度看，它重新获得的是一种早已行使过、获得过国际承认、后来又被武力镇压的主权。使用再确认一词，并不意味着在1918年至1991年之间构造了一个虚构的行政连续性。三十五年前宣布独立的机构，源自乌克兰苏维埃社会主义共和国。它与乌克兰人民共和国之间存在政治、历史和象征意义上的连续性，其基础在于国家建国理念的延续，后来又由流亡中的乌克兰政府正式确认。
此外，乌克兰国家性的历史远早于20世纪。现代民族国家的概念属于近代，而其制度谱系则包括基辅罗斯、加利西亚沃里尼亚王国、立陶宛大公国发展出的法律传统、扎波罗热塞契，以及哥萨克酋长国。从这些历史经验中，当代乌克兰继承了基辅作为她的政治中心、留里克王朝的三叉戟标志、货币名称、军事传统以及选举式政府形式。19世纪期间，正如许多欧洲民族所经历的那样，这份历史遗产逐渐转化为一个建立在领土、语言、文化和政治代表权之上的现代民族项目。
沙皇制度垮台后，乌克兰中央拉达于1917年3月在基辅成立。11月20日通过的《第三次通告》建立了乌克兰人民共和国，最初设想是成为后沙皇时代民主联邦俄罗斯的一部分。彼得格勒的布尔什维克政变彻底改变了局势。布尔什维克未能夺取拉达的控制权，于是在哈尔科夫建立了另一个乌克兰苏维埃政府，并在地方起义的支持下，从外部发动军事推进。拉达作出回应，于1918年1月22日颁布《第四号通告》，宣布乌克兰人民共和国为一个自由、主权和独立的国家。2月9日，该共和国在布列斯特立陶夫斯克与同盟国签署了自己的国际条约。
（图：在宵禁期间执勤的一名勇敢的乌克兰女警察，与我一起手持我们的国旗??。感谢文尼察警察局持续、迅速的守护：@patrolpolice_vinnytsia版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
1918年发生的一切绝不是一纸意向声明。乌克兰建立了议会、政府、法律体系、军队、外交机构和货币，并确立了国家象征。三叉戟成为国徽，蓝黄两色组成国旗，《乌克兰尚未灭亡》被确定为国歌。1918年4月，共和政体被帕夫洛斯科罗帕茨基酋长领导的乌克兰国取代。这个政权发展了行政体系，建立了大学和科学院。同年年底，执政委员会恢复了乌克兰人民共和国。1919年1月22日，乌克兰人民共和国与西乌克兰人民共和国的《统一法案》在基辅正式宣布。战时条件阻止了两个行政体系的完全合并，但并未抹去乌克兰领土统一这一原则。第一次现代独立最终被一场多线战争压垮：布尔什维克军队、俄罗斯白军以及其他出现在乌克兰土地上的武装；内部纷争、外交孤立和夺去大量乌克兰士兵生命的斑疹伤寒疫情，又进一步恶化了局势。
乌克兰的独立战争，败在后方失守
史学界把1919年的解体称为奥塔曼主义（otamanshchyna），也就是地方阿塔曼统治。短短数月内，执政委员会的权威便瓦解成数十个地方指挥体系。它们有时承认中央政府，有时不承认；自行征用物资，自行展开谈判。1918年12月阿塔曼格里戈里耶夫成为效忠共和国的一名首领，次年2月转投布尔什维克，并代表布尔什维克从协约国军手中夺取敖德萨；5月，他又起兵反对布尔什维克，自封为乌克兰阿塔曼。内斯托尔马赫诺在南方建立了自己的秩序体系；阿塔曼泽列尼在基辅以南发动农村反对执政委员会，既与布尔什维克作战，也与执政委员会作战，直到9月才重新承认那个曾经被他反对的政府。各色旗号下的武装，包括一些名义上仍效忠共和国的部队，都参与了反犹大屠杀，造成数万人死亡，并使乌克兰国家在协约国眼中的道德信誉遭受重创。与此同时，政治阶层也在自身分裂中消耗殆尽：弗拉基米尔温尼琴科于2月离开执政委员会；11月，加利西亚军队转而投向邓尼金；几个月后，彼得留拉又与华沙签署单独协议，加利西亚人将其视为背叛。到夏末，政府实际控制的只剩下卡缅涅茨波多利斯基以及仍能通行的铁路。共和国军队即使背后已经没有领土可守，仍继续战斗。第一次冬季战役让这支军队持续数月在敌后发动袭击。因此，在一段时间里，这支军队甚至比本应支撑它的国家存续得更久。
由此1919年的教训，在今天比以往任何时候都更值得铭记：当后方四分五裂时，乌克兰就会失去国家主权。
在那场战争中，最先崩溃的反而不是前线。到1920年初，乌克兰大部分地区已处于布尔什维克控制之下。1921年的《里加条约》巩固了乌克兰土地的分裂，乌克兰人民共和国的军队和政府则被迫流亡。乌克兰苏维埃社会主义共和国形式上保留了边界、机构和名义上的主权，但其军事、政治和国家机器都实际上依赖莫斯科。后来，它成为苏联的创始加盟共和国之一；1945年，又成为联合国创始会员国之一。
（图：摄于乌克兰赫尔松州科帕尼杀戮区内部??版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
战败带来的后果是具体而现实的。乌克兰人民失去了能够自主决定国家安全、农业、经济、语言以及自身人口构成等问题的主权机构。在随后的数十年中，苏联中央推行的政策包括集体化、强制征粮、乌克兰大饥荒、政治镇压、驱逐和逐步俄罗斯化。独立的丧失，使这些政策得以实施，而乌克兰没有一个需要向本国民众负责的政府能够作出制衡和回应。
与此同时，乌克兰人民共和国国家中心继续在流亡中存在，近七十二年的时间始终坚持恢复主权的主张。
通往1991年的道路，正式始于1990年7月16日。当天，最高拉达通过《国家主权宣言》。文件确认了共和权力在乌克兰领土上的至高性、自主性、完整性和不可分割性，同时确认乌克兰在对外关系上的独立。1991年8月莫斯科政变未遂后，乌克兰议会宣布国家为独立、民主国家，并规定乌克兰领土上只有乌克兰宪法和乌克兰法律有效。
这项议会决定于1991年12月1日交由人民表决。在全民公投中，84.18%的登记选民参加投票，90.32%的人投票支持《独立法案》。全国27个行政单位均以多数票通过。在克里米亚，54.19%的选民投了赞成票；在塞瓦斯托波尔，这一比例为57.07%。顿涅茨克、卢甘斯克、敖德萨和哈尔科夫州的支持率均超过80%；在大多数其他地区，支持率超过90%或95%。因此，独立并不是基辅、加利西亚或西方强加给乌克兰东部或南部的。它是全民族作出的选择，其中也包括后来被俄罗斯宣传描述为不属于乌克兰计划的地区。在随后的几天里，乌克兰获得了最初的国际承认；甚至俄罗斯也在第一周内承认了乌克兰的独立地位。
（图：在乌克兰赫尔松杀戮区进行战地报道??版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
对于理解再确认一词，最重要的一幕出现在1992年8月22日。流亡中的乌克兰人民共和国总统米科拉普拉维尤克放弃国家中心的权力，并承认1991年宣布成立的乌克兰，是1918年乌克兰人民共和国国家和民族传统的继承者。代表团向基辅当局移交了终止权力文件、继承声明以及在流亡中保存的历史徽记。这是一种政治和象征意义上的移交，并不声称自动取代国际继承规则；同时，它也结束了自1920年底以来一直在海外维持的制度连续性。
1991年之后建立的安全秩序，本应使乌克兰的主权不可逆转。乌克兰以无核武器国家身份加入《不扩散核武器条约》，并承诺销毁部署在其领土上的苏联核武器。在1994年12月5日签署的《布达佩斯备忘录》中，俄罗斯、英国和美国重申承诺尊重乌克兰的独立、主权和现有边界，不以武力侵犯乌克兰的领土完整或政治独立。2014年对克里米亚的占领以及战争的开始，随后在2022年发动的全面入侵，都直接违反了这些承诺。联合国大会于2014年确认乌克兰的领土完整，并正式将2022年开始的战争定义为对乌克兰的侵略。
正是在这条历史连续性中，乌克兰迎来了其独立恢复三十五周年纪念日。
（图：在俄罗斯袭击中幸存的军中牧师在巴拉克列亚为我们的国旗??签名；照片中他身后的教堂在袭击中严重受损版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
在克里沃伊罗格，俄罗斯无人机分两轮袭击了阳光画廊购物中心。第二次袭击发生在第一次爆炸约半小时后，当时火灾已经爆发、救援行动已经展开。克里沃伊罗格防务委员会负责人亚历山大维尔库尔于8月23日上午更新了最新伤亡数字：16人死亡、140人受伤，其中25名伤者是儿童。维尔库尔宣布8月23日为该市哀悼日；此前一天，第聂伯罗彼得罗夫斯克州也举行了全州哀悼。如今，我们在灾难现场采访与灾难发生之间的时间距离，已经以天来计算。在扎波罗热地区，俄罗斯军队发动了7次袭击，损毁多所民宅。最初报告的两名死者后来增加至3人，另有15人受伤，其中包括一名儿童。不到二十天前，我们还曾在该地区进行报道，当时便指出这里是风险最高的区域之一。在赫尔松，8月21日至22日夜间，俄罗斯无人机烧毁并几乎彻底摧毁了位于市中心区的奥斯卡购物中心。对于一座每天遭受炮击和无人机袭击的城市来说，奥斯卡原本是最后一座仍在营业的购物中心。就在不久前，我们还曾从那里发回现场报道。在波尔塔瓦州，俄罗斯两次袭击了极光零售连锁集团的配送中心。第二次袭击发生时，紧急救援人员已经在现场工作。同一地区的DTEK Naftogaz能源基础设施也遭到袭击，天然气开采设施被迫停止运行。
近几周我们的工作轨迹，如今已经与袭击目标地图重合。它以令人毛骨悚然的精准度显示出：俄罗斯正试图让在乌克兰生活变得更加昂贵、更加危险，也更加难以维持。
（图：被俄罗斯联邦摧毁的克里沃伊罗格Epicentr购物中心版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
在这样的条件下，独立获得了最具体的含义。独立意味着一个国家有能力治理自己的领土、保护民众、维持基础设施运转、生产能源、向城市供应物资，并阻止外部势力决定公民可以在哪里生活、工作或聚集。正是这种能力，在乌克兰人民共和国战败后丧失，又在1991年恢复。
因此，当前战争争夺的，正是那一历史性选择在现实中能否存续。
1919年的历史先例揭示了其中的利害所在。第一次现代独立之所以被扼杀，是因为乌克兰机构同时遭受多条战线的战争冲击，缺乏足够的国际支持，并在内部被一个又一个阿塔曼、一次又一次分裂逐渐掏空。
随后七十余年间，决定乌克兰命运的根本性事务都由外部力量作出。1991年让这个国家重新获得了受国际承认的边界、国家机构、国际代表权，以及覆盖每一个地区的全民主合法性。与1919年相比，这是一场统一后方的胜利，是人民共和国当年所缺少的领土共识。
今天，在全面入侵持续四年半之后，俄罗斯只剩下一种胜利理论，而这与1919年完全相同：瓦解乌克兰后方的团结。
在前线，莫斯科每月以数万人的代价换取几公里土地；此时此刻发生的袭击，是针对乌克兰后方的战略的一部分，而对内部裂痕的押注，无论是政治、制度还是信息层面的裂痕，，则是这一战略隐秘的另一部分。只要读一读俄罗斯宣传机器在西方发出的标题，就能理解街头运动和战时反腐败行动如何被工具化。在一场前线已经扩散成相互渗透区域的战争中，后方本身就是战场，而后方的凝聚力正是莫斯科最密切关注的变量。《布达佩斯备忘录》本应通过法律和大国承诺巩固1991年的成果；但战争表明，当协议的遵守没有有效的威慑和防御手段作保障时，协议会变得多么脆弱，也表明守住后方何其重要。
一个处于战争中的国家，不能像和平时期那样思考。避免本土战线出现任何形式的分裂，至关重要。
（图：从赫尔松唯一仍在营业的购物中心进行报道，数小时后，它被俄罗斯联邦摧毁版权所有，Giorgio Provinciali）
自1991年独立恢复以来，三十五年已经过去；自1918年第一次现代独立宣言以来，也已经过去一百零八年。8月24日，乌克兰铭记自己重新完全掌握自身命运的那一天。在2026年，这份自由依然拥有具体的面孔：救援人员在双击袭击的威胁下被迫继续工作；为购买日常生活所需却被杀害的平民所付出的代价；以及在新一轮弹道导弹袭击到来前几秒响起的警报声。独立的再确认，仍在每一天通过国家的防卫以及公民留在自己土地上的意志得以延续。从历史中汲取那条最严酷的教训：不要让后方崩裂，才能守护这份1918年宣告、1991年由全国确认、如今又在抵抗试图再次抹去它的人的独立。
??民族万岁*
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