Ukrainians and supporters will form human chains in cities abroad at 19:00 (7 p.m.) on 24 August 2026 to mark Independence Day, Ukraine’s Mission to the European Union announced on 20 August.

Russia’s invasion has driven more than 5.6 million Ukrainians to seek refugee or other international protection abroad, according to the UN Refugee Agency. The human chains will help displaced Ukrainians and established diaspora communities show that Ukraine still needs their host countries’ support, the organizers say. Participants follow in the footsteps of Ukrainians in the Soviet era who formed human chains to demonstrate their desire for independence.

The 2026 Chain of Unity campaign website listed 55,600 participants on 22 August. Ukrainians and their supporters will gather on central streets and squares in Warsaw, London, Berlin, Rome, Toronto, New York, and other cities, where they will hold hands in local chains.

An interactive map allows people to find, join, or organize a local chain. Ukraine’s Cultural and Foreign Ministries support the action, which is being held only outside the country.

Ukrainians abroad will use Independence Day in other ways to draw attention to Ukraine’s wartime needs. Ukrainian community groups have organized rallies in 11 cities across 10 countries, calling on European governments to use Russian central bank reserves frozen under sanctions to fund Ukraine.

Why human chains still matter to Ukraine

Human chains became a powerful symbol of Ukrainian unity as Soviet rule weakened and the independence movement moved into the open.

On 21 January 1990, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians formed the nearly 700-kilometer “Ukrainian Wave” from Ivano-Frankivsk through Lviv to Kyiv. It became late-Soviet Ukraine’s largest public demonstration and helped build momentum for independence the following year.

The pro-independence People’s Movement of Ukraine (Rukh) spent five months organizing the chain. When gaps appeared, organizers bused volunteers from Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk to fill them, while participants supplied their own fuel.

The 1990 chain marked the anniversary of the 1919 union of the Ukrainian People’s Republic and Western Ukrainian People’s Republic, two Ukrainian states that emerged after World War I. By joining hands across regions while their country remained part of the Soviet Union, participants showed broad support for restoring Ukraine's sovereignty and unity.

After 1991, Ukrainians kept the tradition on Unity Day, the 22 January holiday marking that union. They often joined hands across Dnipro bridges to symbolize east-west unity. This year’s action takes the gesture abroad: refugees, established Ukrainian communities, and supporters are using it to show they remain part of one nation.

The lower house of the Dutch parliament on June 19 officially recognized the 1944 mass deportation of Crimean Tatars by the Soviet Union as genocide, according to a statement from the parliamentary press service.

The motion cited precedent from other countries that have recognized the forced deportations as genocide, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Canada, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine.

In the adopted text, Dutch lawmakers declared that the Soviet-led deportation of Crimean Tatars, which took place between May 18 and 21, 1944, constitutes genocide by contemporary legal and historical definitions.

The 1944 deportation was carried out under direct orders from Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who labeled the entire Crimean Tatar population as traitors following the peninsula's liberation from Nazi occupation.

Over 190,000 Tatars were forcibly removed from Crimea in a matter of days, though some estimates place the number closer to 430,000, and sent to remote areas in Central Asia, mainly Uzbekistan, in brutal conditions that led to mass deaths.

The document pointed to the ongoing repression of Crimean Tatars under Russian occupation since 2014. It said that "many Crimean Tatars have been unjustly imprisoned, subjected to torture by the Russian Federation, or forcibly disappeared," and added that "Russia has likely continued a policy of genocide against Crimean Tatars."

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha welcomed the decision, calling it "a powerful gesture of solidarity with the Crimean Tatar people, who are still facing persecution under Russia’s temporary occupation of the Ukrainian Crimea peninsula."

Sybiha noted that the Netherlands is now the seventh country to formally recognize the deportation as genocide and urged other nations to follow suit.

"Recognizing this historical injustice is critical not only for establishing truth and justice, but also for preventing future atrocities," the minister wrote.

Ukraine's parliament recognized the deportation as genocide in 2015 and established May 18 as the official Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Genocide of the Crimean Tatar People.

Who are the Crimean Tatars?

Crimean Tatars are one of Ukraine’s indigenous peoples who have been central to Crimea’s history for many centuries.

The Kyiv IndependentAnastasiia Lapatina