US envoy for Ukraine attends Independence Day celebrations in Kyiv

U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Keith Kellogg visited Kyiv on August 24 to take part in the celebrations marking Ukraine’s Independence Day.

Kellogg attended the ceremony on Sophia Square in central Kyiv, where President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered an address, Caliber.Az cites Ukrainian media.

Alongside Kellogg, representatives and officials from other countries also joined the celebrations, including Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Foreign guests also included the defence ministers of Sweden, Denmark, Romania, Lithuania, Latvia, and Canada, as well as the UK’s Minister for Veterans’ Affairs.

Ukraine celebrates its Independence Day on August 24, marking the anniversary of the 1991 declaration of independence from the Soviet Union. The declaration followed a failed coup in Moscow and the subsequent collapse of the USSR, when the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, unanimously voted to assert the country’s sovereignty. This historic moment was later confirmed by a nationwide referendum on December 1, 1991, in which over 90% of voters supported independence.

By Khagan Isayev