KYIV, Aug 24 - Ukraine’s president on Tuesday urged closer ties between the ex-Soviet nation and NATO and the European Union in a speech marking the 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence, the AP reported.

Ukraine celebrated the Independence Day on Tuesday with a military parade and massive festivities in the capital Kyiv. Opening the parade, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that a strong Ukraine is “a country that dreams ambitiously and acts decisively.”

“Such a country becomes NATO’s Enhanced Opportunities Partner; such a country is officially supported by others when it applies to join the European Union,” Zelenskyy said.

NATO and the EU keep mum about when Ukraine can become a member, despite Kyiv’s persistence. The EU only went as far as to sign a landmark Association Agreement with Ukraine in 2014, which stipulated free trade and visa-free travel between the two.

Ukraine’s Western allies expect Kyiv to keep pushing reforms, including in the judiciary, and the creation of effective anti-corruption mechanisms that would stem the endemic graft in the country.

“Ukrainian democracy is a work in progress which yet to learn the lessons of fighting corruption and to limit the influence of the oligarchs,” Ukrainian political analyst and head of the Penta Center think tank Volodymyr Fesenko told the AP.

“Western partners directly link the speed of (Ukraine’s) integration into Euro-Atlantic blocs with success in reforms and the fight against corruption,” he said.

The 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence came as the country is locked in a bitter tug-of-war with Russia, which in 2014 annexed Crimea and has since been backing a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine, and Kyiv’s efforts to shore up support among Western nations.

“Territories may be occupied, but one can’t occupy the people’s love for Ukraine. One can create a desperate situation and make people get (Russian) passports, but one can’t issue passports for their Ukrainian hearts,” Zelenskyy said Tuesday. “If some people in Crimea and Donbass (region in eastern Ukraine, controlled by Russia-backed separatists) are afraid to talk about it, it doesn’t mean they are afraid to think about it. They will come back, because we’re family.”

Delegations from 46 countries and blocs, including 14 presidents, attended the parade in Kyiv. The day before, they took part in the Crimean Platform summit called by Ukraine to build up pressure on Russia over the 2014 annexation of Crimea that has been denounced as illegal by most of the world.

The annexation and Moscow’s backing of rebels in the east of Ukraine, where more than 14,000 have been killed since 2014 in the fighting between separatists and Ukrainian forces, plunged Russia’s relations with the West to post-Cold War lows. The tensions rose once again this year after Russia increased troop numbers near its borders with Ukraine, including in Crimea, eliciting international outrage. (ap/ez)