Ukraine’s Right to be
Itself. Sovereign, Indivisible, Independent
Address by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the occasion of Constitution Day, the 30th anniversary of the Constitution of Ukraine, delivered on June 28, 2026.
The wounded churches of Ukraine. Attacked by evil. Riddled with Russian bullets. Shattered by guided aerial bombs and missiles. Famous cathedrals in cities of millions and small churches in our villages. Churches, mosques, synagogues. Seven hundred and forty religious sites in Ukraine that Putin has struck. This is who we are fighting. This is what our enemy is.
On the night of June 15, he added the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra and the Dormition Cathedral to the list of evidence of his madness. Yet another strike, yet another manifestation of their true nature, and at the same time yet another proof that the unity of Ukrainians is our greatest strength. That night, our Lavra stood firm thanks to our people.
Distinguished guests, dear warriors, our firefighters and first responders, statesmen, dear presidents, representatives of the clergy and the diplomatic corps, dear Ukrainian people,
Today is a special day. Emotionally and spiritually very powerful. Sunday. Constitution Day of Ukraine. Exactly thirty years ago, an important pillar of our state’s independence was established. It was when Ukrainians stopped living under the old law, and most importantly, someone else’s law, and fully began to build a new life, their own life, based on new foundations and principles, the foremost of which is Ukraine’s right to be itself. Sovereign, indivisible, independent. These are the fundamental things of our Fundamental Law, the Constitution of Ukraine. But any articles of the Constitution would remain only letters on paper without the millions of Ukrainians who are ready to defend our independence, their land, their rights and freedoms – and to do so in unity. And only in this way.
We have seen this unity hundreds of times. We saw it on the night of June 15, right here, in this symbolic place of our strength, in our Lavra, near our Dormition Cathedral. The cathedral that stood firm, that people prayed for together, and that was saved together by employees of the State Emergency Service – thank you – our priests, the staff of the national preserve, and everyone who cared. They saved unique exhibits and relics, fought fire and wind, and did so selflessly, proactively, and in a coordinated way, despite the risk of another enemy strike and without any additional, special instructions. No one needed to be told why this mattered, or just how much.
This is symbolic. It is a manifestation of our maturity and, in particular, of our understanding of the Constitution of Ukraine, which gives Ukrainians our bearings. But from there, it is our people who fill it with meaning, who fill it with life – every day – and prove that the strength of Ukraine’s Fundamental Law lies not in the legal beauty of its articles, but in the true unity of Ukraine.
It is this unity of ours – on the night of June 15, on the morning of February 24, and throughout the entire war – that is one of the reasons why we are standing together and standing here today, on our own land, under our own flags, battle standards, and crosses, celebrating our own holidays and paying tribute to our state, our people, and our Constitution. To everything that unites us when we know firmly: the Lavra stands, St. Sophia stands, and therefore Kyiv stands, Ukraine stands. It stands and will stand firm.
Because people fight for it and pray for it in every corner of our country. And today’s joint prayer here will be a reflection of this. A unique, absolutely unique prayer, held in this format for the first time, bringing together priests from different regions of Ukraine. Those whose churches have been damaged and destroyed by Russian strikes: Ukraine’s wounded churches in the Kharkiv region, the Sumy region, Dnipro, Chernihiv, and Irpin. Together with them, priests from Berdiansk, the Odesa region, and the Ternopil region, who went through the hell of Russian captivity, will pray for Ukraine.
Father Vasyl Fedorenko, who combined service to God and military service – defending Mariupol and baptizing fighters at Azovstal. Chaplain Mykola Luchynskyi, who opened an exhibition about this war in a church in Khmelnytskyi, bringing its exhibits himself after his regular trips to the front.
A parish minister in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, Ivan Teremko, who once underwent an amputation and today visits our severely wounded fighters and strengthens their spirit. The head of the Polish church in our Mykolaiv region, Paweł Staniaszek, who was born in Poland but has lived in Ukraine since 2014, having chosen helping our people and our warriors at the front as his mission. And Valentyn Horokhovskyi from Kherson, who did not surrender his church to the occupiers, evacuated many children from the captured city, and returned to his church after Kherson was liberated – because truth always prevails.
Today we will hear them, hear their stories, united by one central moral: everything that has been destroyed, we will rebuild, because the light in the soul has endured. Ukraine is strong, and it is strong when the state, the church, our military, the people of Ukraine, and the world – the entire world that is helping us so much – become one whole. For the sake of peace and for the sake of Ukraine. This may not be written directly in Ukraine’s Constitution, but it certainly corresponds to the spirit of the law by which we are building our life in this difficult time. And it certainly corresponds to the bright ideas with which our fallen heroes, our heroic warriors, every man and woman who gave their lives so that our state may live defended Ukraine and independence. I now ask everyone to honor them with a moment of silence.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen,
2026 is a special year for our state. Ukraine is marking anniversaries: the adoption of the Constitution, the establishment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the restoration of our state symbols and the hryvnia. And the culmination of all this is August 24, 2026 – Independence Day of Ukraine. The 35th anniversary of the restoration of our independence. It is important that in such a year, Ukraine is giving rise to new, landmark elements of its state-building.
Today, I submitted to Parliament a law on the Ukrainian National Pantheon. The names of all the heroes who, across different centuries and eras, fought for Ukraine and inspired Ukraine will be brought together and forever inscribed in our history – with a capital letter, with great respect and attention from the state, our state – Ukraine, which respects itself, values its people, and defends what is its own – its own, and this is very important, its own right to be Ukrainian. When no one, ever, will dictate how we should live, how we should speak, whom we should love, whom we should be grateful to, or which heroes we should honor.
And it is precisely in this context, as a sign of exactly this kind of gratitude, that today we are righting yet another historical injustice. From now on, here in the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, a bust of a great Ukrainian and patron of the Lavra, Ivan Mazepa, will stand, as it rightfully should.
For centuries, Russia has smeared his name, striving to make Ukrainians view their own history through the eyes of others, convincing our people that Mazepa was a traitor. This is a lie, and this lie has failed. Forever.
And today, we honor our own outstanding statesman and military leader, patron, and head of the Cossack State, Ivan Mazepa.
It is important that we are doing this precisely here, in the Lavra, which truly flourished under his patronage – with its churches, bell towers, and its unique Ukrainian Baroque face.
And without doubt, a figure of this scale deserves a full-fledged monument in the capital of our state. I believe that there is an ideal location for it. It has been there since December 2013 on Shevchenko Boulevard, and I am certain that where Lenin fell, Mazepa will stand firm.
Dear friends, dear citizens,
Today, we are at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. This is truly our pride. It is one of the oldest holy sites of the Christian world, which was a bastion of Orthodoxy in Eastern Europe. And it has always been much more than just a monastery. At a time when Moscow did not yet exist, the Lavra was a cradle of development, where Ukrainian history, education, science, art, icon painting, book printing, and medicine took shape. Here, the Ukrainian soul, our memory, and our national identity were formed.
Already in August, on the Feast of the Dormition, the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra will mark 975 years since its founding. This is a special milestone. For in just one generation, Ukrainians on this land will be celebrating the Lavra’s millennium. Our national holy site, alongside St. Sophia, the Transfiguration Cathedral in Chernihiv, and many other witnesses to the thousand-year existence of Kyivan Rus’ – all of this together definitively affirms the fact that the roots of Ukrainians on this land are vast, strong, and our own.
I am speaking now about an event that will take place 25 years from now for a reason. Ukraine will mark milestones such as the Lavra’s millennium with dignity. And preparations will begin today. After all, this is about a long and painstaking process: restoring and preserving dozens of cultural monuments, museum collections, the Lavra’s buildings, our great heritage – one of the world’s centers of Christianity. This requires a major, collective effort, which we are beginning today. And we must mark the Lavra’s millennium in the same unity that strengthens and protects our people and our state. I am signing the relevant Decree here and now.
Dear people,
Thirty years ago, the Constitution of Ukraine was adopted. The Constitution of a democratic state. A free state, capable of defending its values. A state that, thanks to the Constitution, has a solid foundation for building Ukraine – a European Ukraine.
Ukraine has already come a long way to the EU. Much has been built on this foundation, negotiations on our membership, future EU membership, have already begun, clusters are already being opened, and every such step brings us closer together – Ukraine and the European Union, Ukrainians and, or course, all of Europe. Behind every such success of the state stand our citizens, our warriors, and all our people who protect the security and the future of all of Europe. And who, through all their actions every day, bring closer not merely accession, but our affirmation as an integral part of the common European home. And behind every such step also stand our like-minded people from other countries – true friends and allies, tested by time and struggle, who have proven that Ukraine and Europe are one.
Ukraine will honor all such individuals with a new state award: the Order of Europe. A symbol of the effectiveness of our joint defense of Europe.
Ukraine has fully earned the right to have an order with this very name – earned it through its round-the-clock fight for Europe’s life. And all those who have stood and continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with us in this fight will be honored with this distinction: Ukraine’s Order of Europe.
Dear Ukrainians,
I began this speech by speaking about what a decisive force our Ukrainian unity is. And I want to emphasize this once again, because today we are all united in what matters most: Ukraine wants peace. Ukraine wants to live its own life on its own land and be free to determine its future, to choose its friends, to be proud of those who truly deserve it, and to be strong enough not to surrender what is truly valuable to all of us. When Ukrainians are together, and when we work toward a common goal, we achieve extraordinary things. I believe that together we will also achieve what we all dream of – a durable and just peace, peace for Ukraine. It will certainly come. Our independence will endure. Our Ukrainian people will endure. Our sacred places will endure. We protect them. We care for the state. We work for our Ukraine. I thank everyone who protects those beside them and cares for our national interests as they would for themselves.
Happy Constitution Day of Ukraine!
Glory to Ukraine!
Address by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the occasion of Constitution Day, the 30th anniversary of the Constitution of Ukraine, delivered on June 28, 2026.
The wounded churches of Ukraine. Attacked by evil. Riddled with Russian bullets. Shattered by guided aerial bombs and missiles. Famous cathedrals in cities of millions and small churches in our villages. Churches, mosques, synagogues. Seven hundred and forty religious sites in Ukraine that Putin has struck. This is who we are fighting. This is what our enemy is.
On the night of June 15, he added the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra and the Dormition Cathedral to the list of evidence of his madness. Yet another strike, yet another manifestation of their true nature, and at the same time yet another proof that the unity of Ukrainians is our greatest strength. That night, our Lavra stood firm thanks to our people.
Distinguished guests, dear warriors, our firefighters and first responders, statesmen, dear presidents, representatives of the clergy and the diplomatic corps, dear Ukrainian people,
Today is a special day. Emotionally and spiritually very powerful. Sunday. Constitution Day of Ukraine. Exactly thirty years ago, an important pillar of our state’s independence was established. It was when Ukrainians stopped living under the old law, and most importantly, someone else’s law, and fully began to build a new life, their own life, based on new foundations and principles, the foremost of which is Ukraine’s right to be itself. Sovereign, indivisible, independent. These are the fundamental things of our Fundamental Law, the Constitution of Ukraine. But any articles of the Constitution would remain only letters on paper without the millions of Ukrainians who are ready to defend our independence, their land, their rights and freedoms – and to do so in unity. And only in this way.
We have seen this unity hundreds of times. We saw it on the night of June 15, right here, in this symbolic place of our strength, in our Lavra, near our Dormition Cathedral. The cathedral that stood firm, that people prayed for together, and that was saved together by employees of the State Emergency Service – thank you – our priests, the staff of the national preserve, and everyone who cared. They saved unique exhibits and relics, fought fire and wind, and did so selflessly, proactively, and in a coordinated way, despite the risk of another enemy strike and without any additional, special instructions. No one needed to be told why this mattered, or just how much.
This is symbolic. It is a manifestation of our maturity and, in particular, of our understanding of the Constitution of Ukraine, which gives Ukrainians our bearings. But from there, it is our people who fill it with meaning, who fill it with life – every day – and prove that the strength of Ukraine’s Fundamental Law lies not in the legal beauty of its articles, but in the true unity of Ukraine.
It is this unity of ours – on the night of June 15, on the morning of February 24, and throughout the entire war – that is one of the reasons why we are standing together and standing here today, on our own land, under our own flags, battle standards, and crosses, celebrating our own holidays and paying tribute to our state, our people, and our Constitution. To everything that unites us when we know firmly: the Lavra stands, St. Sophia stands, and therefore Kyiv stands, Ukraine stands. It stands and will stand firm.
Because people fight for it and pray for it in every corner of our country. And today’s joint prayer here will be a reflection of this. A unique, absolutely unique prayer, held in this format for the first time, bringing together priests from different regions of Ukraine. Those whose churches have been damaged and destroyed by Russian strikes: Ukraine’s wounded churches in the Kharkiv region, the Sumy region, Dnipro, Chernihiv, and Irpin. Together with them, priests from Berdiansk, the Odesa region, and the Ternopil region, who went through the hell of Russian captivity, will pray for Ukraine.
Father Vasyl Fedorenko, who combined service to God and military service – defending Mariupol and baptizing fighters at Azovstal. Chaplain Mykola Luchynskyi, who opened an exhibition about this war in a church in Khmelnytskyi, bringing its exhibits himself after his regular trips to the front.
A parish minister in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, Ivan Teremko, who once underwent an amputation and today visits our severely wounded fighters and strengthens their spirit. The head of the Polish church in our Mykolaiv region, Paweł Staniaszek, who was born in Poland but has lived in Ukraine since 2014, having chosen helping our people and our warriors at the front as his mission. And Valentyn Horokhovskyi from Kherson, who did not surrender his church to the occupiers, evacuated many children from the captured city, and returned to his church after Kherson was liberated – because truth always prevails.
Today we will hear them, hear their stories, united by one central moral: everything that has been destroyed, we will rebuild, because the light in the soul has endured. Ukraine is strong, and it is strong when the state, the church, our military, the people of Ukraine, and the world – the entire world that is helping us so much – become one whole. For the sake of peace and for the sake of Ukraine. This may not be written directly in Ukraine’s Constitution, but it certainly corresponds to the spirit of the law by which we are building our life in this difficult time. And it certainly corresponds to the bright ideas with which our fallen heroes, our heroic warriors, every man and woman who gave their lives so that our state may live defended Ukraine and independence. I now ask everyone to honor them with a moment of silence.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen,
2026 is a special year for our state. Ukraine is marking anniversaries: the adoption of the Constitution, the establishment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the restoration of our state symbols and the hryvnia. And the culmination of all this is August 24, 2026 – Independence Day of Ukraine. The 35th anniversary of the restoration of our independence. It is important that in such a year, Ukraine is giving rise to new, landmark elements of its state-building.
Today, I submitted to Parliament a law on the Ukrainian National Pantheon. The names of all the heroes who, across different centuries and eras, fought for Ukraine and inspired Ukraine will be brought together and forever inscribed in our history – with a capital letter, with great respect and attention from the state, our state – Ukraine, which respects itself, values its people, and defends what is its own – its own, and this is very important, its own right to be Ukrainian. When no one, ever, will dictate how we should live, how we should speak, whom we should love, whom we should be grateful to, or which heroes we should honor.
And it is precisely in this context, as a sign of exactly this kind of gratitude, that today we are righting yet another historical injustice. From now on, here in the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, a bust of a great Ukrainian and patron of the Lavra, Ivan Mazepa, will stand, as it rightfully should.
For centuries, Russia has smeared his name, striving to make Ukrainians view their own history through the eyes of others, convincing our people that Mazepa was a traitor. This is a lie, and this lie has failed. Forever.
And today, we honor our own outstanding statesman and military leader, patron, and head of the Cossack State, Ivan Mazepa.
It is important that we are doing this precisely here, in the Lavra, which truly flourished under his patronage – with its churches, bell towers, and its unique Ukrainian Baroque face.
And without doubt, a figure of this scale deserves a full-fledged monument in the capital of our state. I believe that there is an ideal location for it. It has been there since December 2013 on Shevchenko Boulevard, and I am certain that where Lenin fell, Mazepa will stand firm.
Dear friends, dear citizens,
Today, we are at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. This is truly our pride. It is one of the oldest holy sites of the Christian world, which was a bastion of Orthodoxy in Eastern Europe. And it has always been much more than just a monastery. At a time when Moscow did not yet exist, the Lavra was a cradle of development, where Ukrainian history, education, science, art, icon painting, book printing, and medicine took shape. Here, the Ukrainian soul, our memory, and our national identity were formed.
Already in August, on the Feast of the Dormition, the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra will mark 975 years since its founding. This is a special milestone. For in just one generation, Ukrainians on this land will be celebrating the Lavra’s millennium. Our national holy site, alongside St. Sophia, the Transfiguration Cathedral in Chernihiv, and many other witnesses to the thousand-year existence of Kyivan Rus’ – all of this together definitively affirms the fact that the roots of Ukrainians on this land are vast, strong, and our own.
I am speaking now about an event that will take place 25 years from now for a reason. Ukraine will mark milestones such as the Lavra’s millennium with dignity. And preparations will begin today. After all, this is about a long and painstaking process: restoring and preserving dozens of cultural monuments, museum collections, the Lavra’s buildings, our great heritage – one of the world’s centers of Christianity. This requires a major, collective effort, which we are beginning today. And we must mark the Lavra’s millennium in the same unity that strengthens and protects our people and our state. I am signing the relevant Decree here and now.
Dear people,
Thirty years ago, the Constitution of Ukraine was adopted. The Constitution of a democratic state. A free state, capable of defending its values. A state that, thanks to the Constitution, has a solid foundation for building Ukraine – a European Ukraine.
Ukraine has already come a long way to the EU. Much has been built on this foundation, negotiations on our membership, future EU membership, have already begun, clusters are already being opened, and every such step brings us closer together – Ukraine and the European Union, Ukrainians and, or course, all of Europe. Behind every such success of the state stand our citizens, our warriors, and all our people who protect the security and the future of all of Europe. And who, through all their actions every day, bring closer not merely accession, but our affirmation as an integral part of the common European home. And behind every such step also stand our like-minded people from other countries – true friends and allies, tested by time and struggle, who have proven that Ukraine and Europe are one.
Ukraine will honor all such individuals with a new state award: the Order of Europe. A symbol of the effectiveness of our joint defense of Europe.
Ukraine has fully earned the right to have an order with this very name – earned it through its round-the-clock fight for Europe’s life. And all those who have stood and continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with us in this fight will be honored with this distinction: Ukraine’s Order of Europe.
Dear Ukrainians,
I began this speech by speaking about what a decisive force our Ukrainian unity is. And I want to emphasize this once again, because today we are all united in what matters most: Ukraine wants peace. Ukraine wants to live its own life on its own land and be free to determine its future, to choose its friends, to be proud of those who truly deserve it, and to be strong enough not to surrender what is truly valuable to all of us. When Ukrainians are together, and when we work toward a common goal, we achieve extraordinary things. I believe that together we will also achieve what we all dream of – a durable and just peace, peace for Ukraine. It will certainly come. Our independence will endure. Our Ukrainian people will endure. Our sacred places will endure. We protect them. We care for the state. We work for our Ukraine. I thank everyone who protects those beside them and cares for our national interests as they would for themselves.
Happy Constitution Day of Ukraine!
Glory to Ukraine!
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