Today marks exactly four years since Putin started his three-day push to take Kyiv, said the President of Ukraine.

“And that, in fact, says a great deal about our resistance, about how Ukraine has fought all this time. Behind those words stand millions of our people. Behind those words stand immense courage, incredibly hard work, endurance, and the long path Ukraine has been pursuing since February 24.

This office – this small room in the bunker on Bankova Street – this is where I held my first conversations with world leaders at the start of the war. Here I spoke with President Biden, and it was right here that I heard: Volodymyr, there is a threat. You need to leave Ukraine urgently. We are ready to help with that. And here I replied that I need ammunition, not a ride.

And not because we are all fearless or made of steel – we are all human beings, and on that day, every one of us, all Ukrainians, felt fear and pain; many were in shock, and many did not know what to say. But on some invisible level, all of us knew that we have no other Ukraine that this is our home, and all of us understood what had to be done.

Such was the choice. The choice that millions of Ukrainians made back then. Our people did not raise a white flag – they defended the blue and yellow one. And the occupiers, who thought they would be met here with crowds waving flowers, saw lines at the recruitment centers instead. Our people chose resistance. And our warriors stood firm, and civilians defended cities and villages, streets and yards. Ordinary people, absolutely, forming living walls, stopped columns of military vehicles, and all together showed lost Russia the only right road.

Everyone understood: every tomorrow had to be won. Ukraine had to stand – the state had to stand no matter what. And despite everything, our Ukraine had to keep functioning. Much was done here; we had never shown this facility before – it’s empty now, of course, but at the beginning of the war, there were hundreds of people here”, - said Volodymyr Zelensky.