Since Ukraine's Independence Day, Ukrainian visionaries and world political elites have warned the Ukrainian government and people of Russia's plans to destroy Ukrainian statehood and the readiness of Russian elites to commit genocide against the Ukrainian nation if our people resist read more
Among such sane people were the founders of "Samostiina Ukraina" - Kyiv lawyers (for now active servicemen, veterans of the war with Russia) Olexander Bashuk and Yuriy Didovets. On March 9, 2000, they were the leaders and organisers of blocking the Central Committee and the Communist Party, created and funded by Imperial Moscow, the leading force restoring Ukraine's dependence on the Russian Federation.
Founded in 1999, the group "Samostiina Ukraina" not only for the first time in the recent history of Ukraine, resorted to physical opposition to the Kremlin's neo-colonisation of Ukraine but also clearly stated in its program "Requirements for Decolonisation of Ukraine" to the parliament, government and president the practical ways of preparing the Ukrainian state and society for the inevitable future Russian aggression.
After the rally on March 9, 2000, its participants, including the founders of "Samostiina Ukraina" Olexander Bashuk and Yuriy Didovets, were illegally detained in Lukyanivka Prison in Kyiv, deprived of the right to defence and a fair trial, expelled from schools, and released from work. The establishment of the Charitable Foundation ''Samostiina Ukraina'' resulted from a confrontation between its founders and the neo-authoritarian system that Russia has tried to establish in all CIS countries, sometimes successfully, as in the case of Lukashenko in the Republic of Belarus.
But at the same time, Russia had failed in the case of Ukraine – when under the pro-Russian puppet regimes of Kuchma and Yanukovych, Ukrainian society proved mature and determined enough to defend Freedom to thwart the Kremlin's aggressive plans.
"Samostiina Ukraina" became an institution that actively promoted the victory of the Orange Revolution in 2005 and the victory of Euromaidan as a result of the Revolution of Dignity.
Immediately after the start of Russia's war against Ukraine, which began on February 20, 2014, with the abduction and murder of Crimean Tatar Reshat Ametov and the assassination of Armed Forces of Ukraine ensign Serhiy Kokurin, "Samostiina Ukraina" faced several challenges in supporting victims of Russian terror in Ukraine. It provides legal and medical assistance to Euromaidan victims, promotes the social adaptation of internally displaced persons from the territories temporarily occupied by Russia, and forces the old pro-Russian state power structure to purify and promote lustration.

After the beginning of active hostilities between the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), Volunteer Corps with Russia on April 12, 2014, when the Russian army and Russian terrorists disguised as "insurgents" led by Russian intelligence officers captured Ukrainian Sloviansk (liberated by the Armed Forces on July 5, 2014), Kramatorsk and Druzhkivka (released by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on July 6, 2014), "Samostiina Ukraina" faced a number of new tasks that were successfully performed during the war: creation and support of public defense initiatives; promoting the development of the Ukrainian language and culture as safeguards against the imperial encroachments of Moscow; assistance in reforming the legal support of the Armed Forces; preparation of the population of Kyiv for participation in the armed resistance of Russia in an attempt to capture the capital of Ukraine; creation of municipal security structures; direct assistance to the Armed Forces and Ukrainian volunteer battalions in the provision of ammunition, means of protection and equipment for defense and offensive purposes, weapons.
Realising the inevitability of a large-scale war with Russia, Oleksander Bashuk and Yuriy Didovets left successful advocacy. They voluntarily went to military service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and participated in hostilities as active servicemen. The central office of the Ukrainian Bar Association, "Ukrainskyi advokat", which they co-founded in 2006, was first transformed into a volunteer headquarters and later into one of the strongholds of Kyiv's Territorial Defense, which it is today.
Unfortunately, the inevitability of Russian aggression against Ukraine was evident to all thinking people as the beginning of Moscow's strategic war against NATO to "return Russia to the borders of 1945, including the restoration of the Warsaw Pact." The Russian war with the whole Free World was not spoken about directly and openly for a long time. Even such wise and far-sighted philosophers as Zbigniew Brzezinski, who predicted Russia's attempt to revive the empire and the fact that Moscow's plans were hindered by Ukraine, "without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire (c)" were drowned out by their fellow "Putinversteher".
Moreover, much of the Western elite deliberately began working for Moscow's military and economic preparations for World War III, recruited by Russia's intelligence services, or literally "bought" by Putin, such as Schröder or Kneissl and others.
The voices of those who understood that the Russian Empire within the borders of 1991 must be dismantled, that the enslaved peoples of the Russian Federation have the same rights for Freedom and self-determination as any other people in the world, and that Ukraine would play a key and decisive role in the future war for Freedom and Progress, haven't been heard.
The quintessence of this understanding is the position of the president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, re-occupied by Russia in 2003, Dzhokhar Dudayev: "Russia will fall when the Ukrainian sun shines!"
Today, the same opinion is repeated by US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Lithuanian Presidents Dalia Grybauskaitė and Gitanas Neuseda, Polish President Andrzej Duda Mazowiecki and others.