I was getting ready to start my grade 3 school education on August 24th, 1991, standing in the streets of Lviv as adults around me wept with joy. I didn’t fully understand why everyone was crying and laughing at the same time, but I felt something shift in the air—something I would only later recognize as the weight of chains falling away. That was the day Ukraine declared independence, the day I first learned what it meant to breathe free air.
For thirty-four years, August 24th has been more than a date on the calendar. It’s been the anniversary of possibility itself.
In that Crimean sunrise photo from 2013, I’m helping the sun rise on the 22nd anniversary of Ukraine independence. I had just become a Canadian citizen by choice, and I thought I was celebrating the perfect fusion of my two identities—Canadian-Ukrainian, bound to both nations by different but equally powerful ties. The Black Sea morning felt like a promise that freedom, once won, could never be lost. How wrong I was.
Now, twelve years later, as I help the Pacific sunset rest on Vancouver Island, I understand August 24th differently. It’s not just the day Ukraine became free—it’s the day Ukraine chose to stay free, no matter the cost.
That Crimean shore where I celebrated in 2013 is now occupied by russians who couldn’t bear to see Ukraine free. The sunrise I helped lift that morning has been darkened by an empire that thinks independence is something they can revoke with tanks and missiles. But russians misunderstood what happened on August 24th, 1991. People of Ukraine didn’t just declare independence from them—People of Ukraine declared independence itself as our birthright.
My students asked me why August 24th matters so much to me as a Canadian-Ukrainian. I told them: imagine if someone tried to steal your ability to breathe. That’s what attacking Ukrainian independence means. It’s not about politics—it’s about the fundamental human right to exist as yourself, to speak your language, to help your own sunrise climb into your own sky.
I chose to become a Canadian citizen, and Canada taught me that citizenship isn’t just about paperwork—it’s about belonging to a community that values your right to be free. When I made the choice to become Canadian, I didn’t lose my Ukrainian soul; I gained a second homeland that stands with Ukraine because many Canadians recognize that freedom anywhere threatened is freedom everywhere at risk. As a Canadian-Ukrainian, I keep standing with Ukraine no matter where I am.
Today, as Ukraine marks its 34th Independence Day under siege, I think about that younger me who felt the world change in 1991. I could never have imagined standing on a Canadian shore as a Canadian-Ukrainian, helping a Pacific sunset carry my prayers across the ocean to defenders who refuse to let August 24th become just another date in history. But I would understand this: the same spirit that moved people of Ukraine to declare independence in 1991 moves them to defend it in 2025. The same breath of freedom that filled our lungs thirty-four years ago still fills the lungs of every Ukrainian who refuses to kneel, and every Canadian-Ukrainian and Ukraine allies who keep standing with Ukraine, no matter where we are.
From Vancouver Island to the front lines, we help the sun rise and set on independence. Because August 24th isn’t just about the day people of Ukraine became free—it’s about the promise to freedom itself that people of Ukraine will never, ever give it back.
Happy Independence Day, Ukraine.
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