---
title: "“The Generation of the Deferred War”: How the Full-Scale War Has Changed the Meaning of Independence Day for Famous Ukrainians"
description: "Famous Ukrainians told Wave RBC.UA how the full-scale war has changed the meaning of Independence Day for them: from a holiday to an awareness of the fragility of freedom, of memory, and of responsibility for the country’s future."
date: 2026-08-24T11:04:02.000Z
lang: en
url: https://xab.info/en/posts/war-and-independence-day-2026-how-famous-ukrainians-see-it
tags: [ukraine-independence-day, ukraine-war, national-identity, society, 24-august]
publisher: "XAB.info"
---

# “The Generation of the Deferred War”: How the Full-Scale War Has Changed the Meaning of Independence Day for Famous Ukrainians

![The Motherland Monument and Ukrainian flag against the sky in Kyiv](https://xab.info/media/2026/08/24/voyna-i-den-nezavisimosti-2026-otnoshenie-izvestnyh-ukraincev/voyna-i-den-nezavisimosti-2026-otnoshenie-izvestnyh-ukraincev-1.webp)

## 🎯 Key Points

- By August 24, 2026, Independence Day in the public discourse has shifted from a holiday to a day of memory, responsibility, and awareness of the fragility of freedom.
- Respondents call themselves “the generation of the deferred war,” recalling August 24, 1991, under the parliament building.
- Independence is described not as a state won once, but as something that must be fought for “again and again.”
- Entrepreneur Natalya Valevskaya links the holiday with the work of her charitable foundation and the unity of front and rear.

On August 24, 2026, the Wave RBC.UA publication reached out to well-known Ukrainians — actors, musicians, writers, directors, and entrepreneurs — to ask what Independence Day means to them today, how their attitude toward this date has changed over the years of the full-scale war, and what they would wish for the country. The answers collected by the publication reveal a shared shift in perspective: the familiar holiday is increasingly described not as an occasion for festivities, but as a day of responsibility, memory, and awareness of the price of freedom. Beside the “Motherland” monument and the golden domes of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, which traditionally accompany the celebratory footage of August 24, this year the words spoken are about the people thanks to whom Ukraine continues to remain independent.

### “The Generation of the Deferred War”

One of the subjects of the publication recalled that on August 24, 1991, she was under the building of the Ukrainian parliament and, together with the crowd, was waiting for the decision on the vote on the Act of Independence. According to her, two days later Anatoly Sobchak came there, trying to “bring people to their senses” and assuring them that Ukrainians and Russians are one people, to which the crowd, in her recollection, “roared in unison: ‘No!’” At the time there were fears of the outbreak of war, but it did not happen — and that is precisely why she calls her generation “the generation of the deferred war.” For her, independence was always not an abstraction but her own action, a part of life and personal responsibility, and now, in her words, it is felt “even more acutely and on a larger scale.”

### Freedom as a Right, Not a Given

Another respondent defines Independence Day as “a reminder and a celebration of the fact that we are free people,” who have the right to their own opinion, culture, language, and happiness. The key idea is that “no one has the right to impose on us a foreign ideology, language, or culture” or “to take away our home.” At the same time, the author directly links this awareness with the ongoing war: living through a “bloody war,” he concludes that the right to existence “even in 2026 must be fought for, blood shed, and lives given, something I would never wish upon anyone.”

### Humanity Does Not Learn Its Lessons

A separate emphasis in the collected answers is placed on the historical repetition of violence. One of the authors writes that “war does not change, people do not change and, unfortunately, do not learn their lessons”: as far back as 10,000 BCE, people were killing, seizing, and destroying one another, and today “sharpened sticks and stones have been replaced by missiles and drones.” In his formulation, “tens of thousands of years of history have taught humanity nothing, which says a great deal” — and it is precisely this understanding that, in essence, makes the date of August 24 not a triumph but a moment of sober awareness.

### The Fragility of Independence and Plans for 2050

After the full-scale invasion, respondents note, the attitude toward Independence Day has shifted “less to a day of celebration and more to a day of reminder” of the ability to determine the country’s future oneself rather than submit to someone else’s decision. The central idea of this section is that “independence is not a state that was won once and held forever”: its fragility and the need to “fight for it again and again” have become a shared experience. At the same time, in these “dark times” the authors note a positive shift: if the future was once measured in terms of “surviving until tomorrow,” now “we can already think about what Ukraine will be like in 2050 or 2070, about the next generations,” and the very fact of being able to make such plans “is already a significant achievement.”

### The Price of Freedom and the Unity of Front and Rear

Entrepreneur Natalya Valevskaya, who heads the eponymous charitable foundation, describes independence through images: “today independence has the taste of salt from tears, the color of a pixel of our defenders, and the voice of a Ukrainian song that heals souls in the heaviest moments.” In her words, the foundation shows daily “how our nation is being tempered,” and “every drone, every humanitarian cargo, and every charity concert is our shared step toward freedom.” She formulates the principle of the unity of front and rear: “to realize that your brother on the front is protecting the sky, while you here, in the rear, are doing everything possible to bring the dawn of our victory closer,” and concludes with the wish that “our unity be stronger than any weapon.”

### A Holiday of Revival

In closing the collected answers, Independence Day is called “a day of strength, faith, and memory” and “a holiday of revival — in valor, talent, victories, in everything,” “a longed-for holiday for us and our forebears.” The authors emphasize that independence “is given to us at a very high price,” and express the conviction that “Ukraine will always and forever be independent.” Thus, by the 35th anniversary of the 1991 Act, the date of August 24 in the public discourse has finally ceased to be merely a calendar event: for famous Ukrainians it has become a personal sense of who they are, and a confirmation that freedom is a daily choice and a common defense of each person “on their own front.”

## 🔍 Fact-Check Verification

- [“We Are the Generation of the Deferred War”: How Famous Ukrainians Perceive Independence Day Today](https://wave.rbc.ua/ukr/stars/mi-pokolinnya-vidkladenoyi-viyni-k-vidomi-1787518826.html) - Первичный источник подборки цитат; все тематические блоки лонгрида построены на прямых цитатах из этой публикации.
- [A Major Festival in Warsaw and an Interview with SadSvit: How Ukrainians Marked Independence Day](https://24tv.ua/show24/ru/festival-puls-of-nation-v-varshave-priurochennyj-ko-dnju-nezavisimosti-kak-jeto-bylo-foto-video_n3128367) - Использован как дополнительный контекст того, что 24 августа 2026 года отмечается в том числе за рубежом; прямых противоречий с источником 1 не содержит.

## ❓ FAQ

### Q: How has the war changed the perception of Independence Day among famous Ukrainians?
**A:** According to the answers collected by Wave RBC.UA, the date has ceased to be only a holiday: it is increasingly described as a day of reminder, memory, and awareness of the fragility of freedom, for which, in the words of respondents, “even in 2026 one must fight.”

### Q: What does the expression “the generation of the deferred war” mean?
**A:** This is how one of the subjects of the publication names their generation, which on August 24, 1991, was under the parliament building waiting for the decision on the Act of Independence: there were then fears of war, but it was “deferred” and later began in full-scale form.

### Q: Does the material contain specific facts, or only opinions?
**A:** The main text is a collection of personal assessments and recollections of respondents (including memories of 1991 and the work of Natalya Valevskaya’s foundation). As context, the fact of the celebration of Independence Day, including abroad, is cited.