Despite the myriad problems that have beset the nation since it broke away from the former Soviet Union and the many dire predictions that it would not survive, Ukraine this week celebrated seven years of independence.
And there is cause for celebration because, notwithstanding its economic problems and political ills, there is now a sense of confidence that Ukrainian independence is not just a temporary phenomenon but a permanent factor on the world scene.
That is a considerable achievement and a testament to the determination of millions of ordinary Ukrainians that they will not be ruled over by a foreign power again but will decide themselves the future of their country.
It is an achievement made possible by the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians of past generations who paid a tragic price for striving for freedom and for keeping alive the dream of independence when successive occupiers tried to crush the very notion of a separate country called Ukraine.
But there is still a lot of work to be done. The dog-in-the-manger speech on Sunday, at independence celebrations, by the speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament, Oleksandr Tkachenko is a case in point. Couched in the hackneyed argot of communism, it banged on about 'Stakhanovite' labors and brotherly links with the Russian Slav brother. The oafish Tkachenko seemed almost to begrudge Ukrainian independence.
It was a sad performance that happily drew little applause. Some young Ukrainians suggested that Monday's independence day parade could have been enhanced by adorning the lamp posts of the newly-refurbished Khreschatyk with Tkachenko and his cronies.
That is unnecessary, as Tkachenko and the other die-hard communist apologists are slowly hanging themselves by lovingly clinging to a loathsome and discredited ideology.
And they are growing older. By the time of Ukraine's seventeenth independence celebrations most of them will be dead and few will remember them other than as a disease which, like chickenpox, was successfully eradicated.
Meanwhile, the young are getting on with building a Ukraine they can be proud of, and time is on their side.
