Some two thousand members of the large Ukrainian community in Argentina marched this Friday in Buenos Aires shouting “Murderer Putin” to demand from the Russian leader a “ceasefire and the unconditional withdrawal of the forces that invaded our country.”
“We demand the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from the sovereign territory of Ukraine,” the leaders of the Central Representation of Ukraine in Argentina (RCUA), where almost 500,000 members of Ukraine reside, said in a petition that they failed to deliver to the Russian embassy. that community, according to the entity. Children and grandchildren of Ukrainians who arrived in the country since the end of the nineteenth century, together with some who arrived in recent years, marched carrying two long Ukrainian flags, singing the national anthem and shouting slogans in their mother tongue such as “Glory to Ukraine, glory to its Heroes”, “Ukraine First” and “Free Ukraine”. “Russians and Ukrainians have a lot in common. My main feeling is anger, what I least imagined is that the Russians were going to kill my people,” Tetiana Abramchenko, a 40-year-old Ukrainian who arrived with her 19-year-old daughter in Argentina, told AFP on the verge of tears. in 2014, after the Russian annexation of Crimea. Tetiana, married to an Argentine and a native of a small town near Poland – which she avoided identifying for fear, she said, of Russian reprisals against her family – believes that “Ukrainians will never forgive the Russians” for the deaths caused by the territorial conflict started eight years ago. About twenty Russians residing in Argentina participated in the demonstration, with signs that said “Terrorist Putin” and shouted “No to war” in their language. “They (Ukrainians) sleep in the subway, cold. Old, sick, little ones who cry, who lose their homes and see blood. I can’t believe that at this time some brothers are killing others. I can’t believe it,” said Nadia Pashanova, 60, a resident of Argentina since 1999. The leaders of the Ukrainian community demonstration, one of the oldest and most numerous in Latin America, expressly thanked their leaders for the support to the Kiev government of countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. Until now, the government of President Alberto Fernández has demanded that Russia “cease military actions in Ukraine, expressed its “firm rejection of the use of armed force”, advocated respect for the “sovereignty of states and their territorial integrity” and He called for an immediate dialogue that would allow a “peaceful solution” to the conflict. “We expected more,” declared neurosurgeon Pedro Lylik, president of the RCUA, at the end of the act in front of the Russian embassy, which closed with a vibrant intonation of the Argentine national anthem.
