BLUE SKY

‘Forward to Victory’: Zelensky Raises Ukrainian Flag Over Liberated Izium

Ukrainian president visits strategic town whose capture was the greatest prize in the Kharkiv counteroffensive.

President Volodymyr Zelensky visited liberated Izium on Wednesday, to thank the soldiers who captured it and raise Ukraine’s flag over the city. As Russia’s only major bridgehead on the right bank of the Donets river, Izium was the big prize in Kyiv’s lightning-fast counteroffensive of the past week, allowing Ukraine’s troops to press on into the Donetsk region. According to The New York Times, Zelensky was “standing in a cold drizzle amid wreckage left behind by the fleeing Russian Army,” as he addressed the troops. “Earlier, when we looked up, we always looked for the blue sky. Today, when we look up, we are looking for only one thing—the flag of Ukraine,” he said. “Our blue-yellow flag is already flying in the de-occupied Izyum. And it will be so in every Ukrainian city and village. We are moving in only one direction—forward and towards victory.”