Thirty‑five years ago, on Aug. 24, 1991, Ukraine’s Parliament adopted the Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine. Undeniably, this was one of the most important geopolitical moments of the 20th century.The restoration of Ukraine’s Independence unchained the Ukrainian people from Russian colonial shackles and enabled them to enter the circle of free peoples of the world. Indeed, it ended three centuries of merciless Russian domination and exploitation, albeit punctuated by brief periods of Ukraine’s statehood. This grim period of Ukraine’s history included the Holodomor, now recognized by the international community as a genocide that took millions of Ukrainian lives.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.Ukraine’s Independence also propelled the dissolution of the Soviet Union into 15 independent states and liberated many other enslaved peoples from what former US President Ronald Reagan correctly coined as an “evil empire.”Therefore, the declaration of Ukraine’s Independence is a historic event that should be commemorated by Ukrainians and all freedom-loving people.As for Russia’s current dictator, unsurprisingly, Ukraine’s Independence is fully unacceptable as it directly led to the collapse of the Soviet empire.Since then, Russia has attempted in numerous ways, including with gas blackmail, to first reconquer Ukraine and, if successful, proceed to reconstitute the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.