“Glory to Ukraine” | A yellow and blue tide in Europe

(Berlin) “Stop the war! Stop Putin! “: from Berlin to Prague, via Vilnius and Athens, a human tide of several hundred thousand people in the yellow and blue colors of Ukraine marched in Europe on Sunday to denounce the Russian invasion and express their fear of an extension of the conflict.

In the German capital alone, at least 100,000 people, according to police, gathered in the center, 70,000 in Prague and 15,000 in Amsterdam.

In Berlin the mobilization was five times higher than what the organizers expected, testifying to the emotion aroused by the war in Ukraine, which awakens dark memories in this metropolis which was the epicenter of the Cold War until 1990.

“Berlin 670 km from the front line”, “Stop the killer” or even “Pas de 3^and World War “, could we read on the signs held up by the protesters often draped in yellow and blue.

“Slava Ukraini” (Glory to Ukraine), also launched demonstrators in front of the Russian Embassy waving the country’s flags.

Fear of a world war

“Germany must take a stand”, assures among the demonstrators Hans Georg Kieler, 49, while his government hesitated for a long time before breaking with its conciliatory policy towards Moscow. “It’s not enough to say that Putin is a villain, Germany must fight for democracy and take responsibility,” he said.

“My mother is (refugee) in a cellar […]my father at home, on the ground floor in a northern district of Kiev”, testifies in the middle of the crowd one of the participants, Valeria Moiseeva, a 35-year-old Ukrainian, pregnant.

Germany hosts more than 300,000 people of Ukrainian origin or nationality on its soil, as well as a large Russian diaspora, particularly in Berlin.

In Prague, the famous Wenceslas Square in the heart of the Czech capital was packed with people. A symbolic place, because it is there in particular that the confrontation with the Russian tanks took place in 1968 during the “Prague Spring”.

“Shame”, shouted the protesters, brandishing signs “Stop the monster” and comparing the Russian head of state to Adolf Hitler.

“It’s really terrible, all this must stop,” said Darya Ostapenko, a Ukrainian who came with her children. “Sanctions must be strengthened to avoid a third world war”.

In the country’s second city, Brno, 5,000 people marched.

” Shame ”

In Vilnius, Lithuania, several hundred demonstrators marched, again shouting “Glory to Ukraine”. “Our Ukrainian brothers would not forgive us for our silence,” Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who lives in exile in Lithuania, told reporters.

“It’s a shame, like stabbing a friend in the back,” says Sergei Bigel, 39, who works in transport, indignantly about the Russian invasion. There too, a few thousand people gathered in front of the embassy waving banners against the Russian head of state.

In the streets of Athens, where at least a thousand people have gathered, Levgeniia Rodionova, a 40-year-old Ukrainian, does not hide her fear. “If we don’t stop Putin now, he won’t be able to stop him in the world, he must be stopped now in Kyiv to prevent him from attacking other cities in Europe,” he said. -she.

Demonstrations also took place in Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid and Tel Aviv, but also in Ecuador, where a small group of protesters held up “Putin assassin” signs in front of the Russian embassy.

Even in Iraq, a few dozen Ukrainian expatriates gathered outside a UN building in Erbil, Kurdistan. “Stop the war,” says a sign held up by two young women. Another reads: “We are proud of the Ukrainian army”.