In an appearance on "Ukraina stuudio" on Saturday, Ukrainian Independence Day, Bogdan Ljutjuk, director of the Ukrainian Cultural Center (UKK) in Estonia, said that the war has exhausted people, but right now, Ukrainians are grateful for the fact that their country exists at all.

"They thank the Armed Forces of Ukraine every day," said Ljutjuk, who most recently visited Ukraine at the end of May. "At every birthday, they say, 'I thank god and the Armed Forces that I can celebrate this birthday, that I am alive at all.' Gratitude. This kind of unity certainly exists in Ukraine, and a very patriotic feeling. But exhaustion as well, of course."

He added that the people are very brave, and are continuing to fight for freedom.

Matti Maasikas, principle adviser on strategic issues to the European Action Service (EEAS) and former EU ambassador to Ukraine, noted that in a country at war, the mood of the people is highly dependent on the situation on the battlefield. In this regard, the recent incursion by Ukrainian forces into Russia's Kursk Oblast and their success there have helped lift people's spirits.

He added that the people's trust in and satisfaction with their country increased sharply with the outbreak of the full-scale war.

"When the full-scale war began in 2022, the consolidation seen in Ukrainians, of Ukrainian society, was wild," Maasikas recalled. "The Ukrainians' self-awareness and – perhaps paradoxically, viewed from afar – the Ukrainians' satisfaction with their country and even with their conditions in that country spiked exponentially. Because there was this feeling that [their] nation was doing one thing [together]."

Along with that came an increase in trust in their leaders and state institutions too.

"This has of course come down slowly, but is still much higher than it was before the full-scale war began," he noted. "This will also provide a top-notch foundation for rebuilding the Ukrainian state, Ukrainian society after the war – following victory."

Both Maasikas and Ljutjuk confirmed that the war has strengthened the unity of the Ukrainian nation.

"Very significant changes have occurred here, if you look at public opinion polls," Maasikas explained. "First of all, the use of the Ukrainian language has shot up. When I returned to Kyiv in early April 2022, dozens of people switched languages speaking with me – people I had previously spoken with in Russian would now only speak in Ukrainian. And this is a variety of people, from the barber on my street all the way through top politicians."

A second massive change involved the clear division on major values and especially regarding foreign policy orientation, which he said up to two, two and a half years ago was still distinct.

"With northern and western Ukraine on one side and southern and eastern Ukraine on the other, where support for Western integration had always been lower and support for conservative values was higher, and support for the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian identity was lower," the former ambassador described. "That division vanished with the first shot fired in February 2022. These differences, these regional differences are now within the margin of error. So the Ukrainian nation is indeed consolidating."

Maasikas: War will leave a scar for generations

During his appearance, Maasikas noted that by last summer already, meaning a year and a half after the full-scale war had begun, 74 percent of Ukrainians personally knew someone who had fallen on the battlefield. He acknowledged that this will leave lasting scars.

"Of course, there are currently young people in Ukraine, for example, who are graduating from university this summer and who have never attended a lecture in person – the full-scale war, and COVID before that," he highlighted. "There are absolutely crushing stories from Kharkiv, where school classes are held down in the subway, and that is the only safe place. All these things, and of course the fact that a quarter of the population has been forced to leave their homes, naturally leave scars that will last for a generation, maybe two."

According to Maasikas, however, Ukrainians understand that they have no choice either but to continue the war and continue to resist.

"Even now, what we've seen over maybe the past year is that the number of Ukrainians who consider negotiations with the Russian Federation necessary or who support [negotiations] has increased, but the number of people who would be willing to make territorial concessions has absolutely not increased," he explained. "In this situation, the democratically elected leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy – because Ukraine remains a democracy even in full-scale war – has no other option but to continue to fight."

Ljutjuk stressed that the war in Ukraine has in fact been going on since 2014, and that Ukrainian society is very exhausted, but people have no other choice but to go on. Fighters' morale, meanwhile, remains high.

"Power outages, interruptions in heating, water supply, even basic household matters – we actually can't imagine today not being able to make coffee at home, right?" he noted. "But when you can't do that for a year or for months, for example, then these things are somehow made to work as miracle [makeshift] systems. I know that a lot of generators, batteries and panels have been bought from Estonia for this. In that sense, it's definitely difficult. But they still go on. There isn't actually any other option – only onward. And while it may seem like society is exhausted, morale in the men on the front line is actually very high. It's absolutely unbelievable what kind of men there really are on the front line there."

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