In Paris, hundreds of Ukrainians gathered on Thursday to denounce Vladimir Putin’s “madness” and show their solidarity with their compatriots.
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“Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes! Glory to the nation! Death to the enemies!”, chant hundreds of people, gathered in the evening, Thursday, February 24, Place de la République, in Paris. Most are Ukrainians and came to denounce the war that Russia told them, in the night of Wednesday to Thursday. Earlier in the day, other Ukrainians had already gathered in front of the Russian Embassy, in the e district. “Putin, terrorist!” Or “Putin Assassin”, they shouted against the diplomatic representation, waving here and there flags blue and yellow.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, a little less than 19,000 Ukrainians have a residence permit in France. They have been living here for a few months or years, some have acquired French nationality. All are in contact with their family and loved ones in the country.
Olena Bondar, 30, shows SMS exchanges she had the same morning with her parents. Installed in Kiev, they say heard bombing. “Our children do not want to die,” says Svitlana Stanislavska. Engaging in its jacket, this building guard, located in Paris for more than twenty years, holds a sign on which is written “Putin = Hitler”. His son, his daughter and his grandchildren live in Ternopil, West Ukrainian. “I cry for my grandchildren. I do not want their fathers to go to war,” she repeats, eyes filled with tears.
“Putin wants to erase a nation”
All are stunned by what happens. And denounce “madness” of the Russian leader Vladimir Putin. “Putin, like Hitler, wants to erase a nation”, Enrage Khrystyna, a 26-year-old Ukrainian come to manifest with his two-year-old child and 25-year-old sister.
“Since 2014, he takes one end of the country then another,” says Janna Sobolevska, “55-year-old security agent. “It’s a war that is not recognized but it’s been eight years old,” said this Ukrainian from Kiev, with reference to the annexation of Crimea by Russia and the recognition of the autonomy of the provinces of Donetsk and Louhansk, in the Ukrainian donbass.
“I do not say that it is the third world war but this war is very much like the aggression of Poland in 1939 which triggered the Second World War,” says Michal Kurela, a Polish engineer who came to testify to his Solidarity with Ukrainians. Russians have also made the process, as André, in France for twenty years and who has “shame” of his government. Or Ekaterina Breslava, a 43-year-old lawyer, who wants to show that “all Russians are not alongside Putin”. Olga Escoffier, 49, she also Franco-Russian, also joined the pro-Ukrainian gatherings. “This is the first time in my life that I manifest, confides. I was impossible for me to stay at home this morning.”
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