The war drags on and gets bogged down in Ukraine, but the Ukrainians who live in Montreal stay the course and continue to demonstrate, every week, against the Russian invasion in this country. Again this Saturday, a hundred people gathered, this time in Old Montreal, to urge the international community to get more involved in this conflict.
“It’s been 52 days, but we’re not getting used to this situation”, sighs Olena Osovyk, a Ukrainian flag in one hand and a poster denouncing the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the other, when met on Saturday instead Jacques-Cartier, which turned yellow and blue in the early afternoon.
“My mother, my brother and my nephew are still there,” says Ms. Osovyk, several of whose relatives left kyiv at the start of the Russian invasion to take refuge in the west of the country. ” They did not have a choice. My mother took documents, medicines, that’s all she took with her,” she says. Today, “they are in relative safety, for the moment”, continues the lady, who plans to go to Ukraine to pick up her mother. “Unfortunately, often, I feel helpless”, sighs the one who tries by various means to help her relatives still in Ukraine.
“It’s horrifying,” worries Natalia Gurin, a Canadian who has several relatives in towns in both eastern and western Ukraine. She does not currently know what state these are in, due to communication problems. “Everything is chaotic at the moment,” notes the lady, who took part in this mobilization.
Since the beginning of this conflict, such demonstrations have also taken place every weekend in the metropolis on the initiative of the Quebec section of the Congress of Ukrainian Canadians, of which Michael Shwec is the president.
“The war continues. It’s Easter weekend for much of the world and Putin doesn’t stop: he keeps bombing Ukraine. So we too will demonstrate our solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Ukraine every weekend,” he said in an interview with the To have to Saturday, while Ukrainian music resounded in the public square. These protests are important, he insists, because “democracy is at risk today” due to the invasion of Vladimir Putin’s autocratic regime in Ukraine, a young democracy.
“There are other dictators around the world who are just waiting to see what the West will do. [contre l’invasion russe]. Ukraine needs to defend itself and defend global democracy,” he said.
A “genocide”
In front of the small crowd gathered on Saturday, where several demonstrators brandished posters denouncing the abuses committed in several Ukrainian cities, the honorary consul of Ukraine in Montreal, Eugene Czolij did not hesitate to use the terms used earlier this week by the president American Joe Biden, calling the war in Ukraine “genocide”.
“These demonstrations are important to ensure total isolation of Russia so that Western dollars do not finance a genocide that is taking shape today in Ukraine,” added Mr. Czolij, when met by The duty on the spot. Concretely, the diplomat calls for a complete embargo on imports of natural gas and Russian oil.
Currently, Europe continues to massively import natural gas from Russia, as shown by data compiled by the European Network of Gas Transmission System Operators, ENTSOG. However, “the money we give to Russia is used to buy weapons to kill the Ukrainians,” said Mr. Shwec on Saturday.
Eugene Czolij, like several other demonstrators as well as the Ukrainian presidency, also calls for the sending of more lethal weapons to Ukraine, in particular by Canada. Michael Shwec, for his part, believes that Ottawa could make it even easier to welcome refugees into the country.