Former MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj says the world community has a responsibility to protect Ukrainians, who could be victims of genocide. The now chairman of the human rights committee of the Ukrainian World Congress notes that Russian President Vladimir Putin does not consider Ukrainians “like real people”.
The former Liberal MP for the riding of Etobicoke-Centre was in the American metropolis this week to inform the UN of the situation in Ukraine. “What I wanted to make clear to the United Nations is that they must listen carefully to what Vladimir Putin is saying,” said Borys Wrzesnewskyj in an interview with the Homework.
The Russian president is slowly beginning a process similar to the Holodomor — a great famine that afflicted the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in the 1930s — by indicating in his speeches this week that Ukraine would cease to exist, according to the Torontonian . During a speech on Monday, the Russian president described the Ukrainian state as a historic mistake.
Signs since July
Borys Wrzesnewskyj believes there were warning signs of the invasion, but these fell on deaf ears. In July, the Russian president notably published a long essay on the Kremlin website in which he argued, among other things, that “true sovereignty of Ukraine was only possible in partnership with Russia”.
“When I read this in July, I had difficulty sleeping because I knew exactly what it meant: it was the language of a dictator who intends to commit genocide”, leaves fall Borys Wrzesnewskyj. “We know they have a list of targets, a list of people to disappear and send to concentration camps,” he said. “This is what Europe has to face in the 21and century”.
According to the Canadian, the Tatars of Crimea, a territory in the south of Ukraine, annexed to Russia following the 2014 invasion, are particularly at risk at the moment. According to the European Center for Minority Issues, 10% of Tatars living in Crimea left the territory after the start of the Russian occupation in 2014, fearing for their lives. Most have since settled in Kherson, a port city where the Russian offensive began on Wednesday. “They escaped from Crimea and are caught up in another occupation,” laments Borys Wrzesnewskyj.
A total economic embargo by Russia is now the only possible option to counter the offensive, the Torontonian believes. On Tuesday, the Canadian government imposed financial sanctions on Russia. This includes banning all financial transactions with the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, both among the first affected by the Russian invasion.