The Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Andriy Parubiy inaugurated solemnly a portal of honour to keep the Flag of Independence secure
On the State Flag Day, there took place a solemn ceremony of opening the portal of honour designed for storage of the flag in the Parliament’s premises. The Chairperson stated in his address it was “my great privilege to open the honorary portal which has been set up to secure a state relic of ours – the Independence Flag – the standard that is seen polar for the whole nation”.
He also noticed that twenty-six years ago the flag had triumphantly been delivered into the session hall of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine by members of parliament of the first convocation including some few of those then present.
That was the day Ukraine’s independence was proclaimed. The state the generations of Ukrainians had struggled for was restored. That was the historic occasion millions of Ukrainians had waited for. Then, that national standard within the Parliament’s walls was the apparently visible symbol of restoration of the independent State of Ukraine.
For Ukrainians, the blue and yellow ensign purports far more than just a national symbol. Our forefathers went out under this standard to battle for freedom and justice, for life of dignity and honour, for free and independent Ukraine. This is the colours of Grand Princes and Cossacks, Ukrainian revolutions, democratic movements; the ensign that embodies the essence of the historical progress of Ukrainians as well as development of the modern political nation. Under this banner, there were the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, the soldiers of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic and the Western Ukrainian National Republic struggling for a free Ukrainian power.
It was the blue and yellow colours that were raised by sailors of the Black Sea Fleet on April 29, 1918 in the Crimea. With it in hands, there were the Ukrainian insurgents of the 1920s rebuffing the invaders over the Sub Dnieper River region, the Carpathian Sich Cossacks as well as warriors of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
This year is the twenty-fifth year as the battle flag of the Third Iron Division of the Army of the Ukrainian National Republic was returned – a crimson-coloured width with a blue and yellow flag embroidered under the motto “For Liberation of Ukraine”. It will ceremonially be hand-carried by the Ukrainian today’s worriers on the Independence Day of Ukraine.
Like our ancestors in old times combatting against invaders, the modern defenders of Ukraine do selflessly guard their Own Land against the mortal enemy – Russia. Our national colours have always been the flag of liberation – liberation of nation, liberation of state, and nowadays -- it is the ensign of liberation of the territories occupied by the Russian aggressor.
The blue and yellow banner had always been, and now is, and will be a flag of victory - the Victory of Ukraine.
“From now on, the Independence Flag is the principal flag of the country, our national sacred thing; and it has eventually occupied the due place here, at the portal of honour in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The blue and yellow flag is the symbol of dignity and unity of Ukrainians all over the world,” said the Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
Lastly, Andriy Parubiy congratulated those present on the State Flag Day of Ukraine.