„In Ukraine, there are between 1.5 and 2 million soldiers alone who have directly fought against the Russians with weapons in hand. (…) This state will be shaped around veterans. Because of the mass scale of the phenomenon, they constitute the social fabric around which the nation’s identity is already being built,” Dr. Piotr Łukasiewicz, Chargé d’Affaires of the Republic of Poland in Ukraine, said in an interview with Defence24. 29th May is marked in Poland as Veterans of Operations Abroad Day.