KYIV — Waving flags and singing the national anthem,
thousands of Ukrainians braved the winter cold to march across Kyiv on Saturday
to show unity in the face of a feared Russian invasion.
اضافة اعلان
“Panic is
useless. We must unite and fight for independence,” said student Maria
Shcherbenko, expressing a sentiment similar to that voiced by Ukranian
President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier in the day.
“I remain calm.
I love Ukraine,” said Shcherbenko’s sign as the sun briefly peeked through the
clouds on a cold and blustery day.
Some carried
signs reading “war is not the answer”, while others held banners calling on the
nation to “resist”.
Riven by an
eight-year conflict that has claimed more than 14,000 lives across its
Moscow-backed separatist east, Ukraine is now facing the threat of an all-out
invasion by Russia.
The Kremlin has
massed more than 100,000 troops around its western neighbour, staging war games
across Belarus to its north and navy drills in the Black Sea to its south.
Washington has
warned that war could break out any day. Western countries are pulling their
diplomats out of Kyiv and ordering citizens to immediately get out of Ukraine.
Even Kyiv,
despite calls for calm from Zelensky and a range of other leaders, has prepared
a plan to evacuate the capital’s three million residents.
No fear
“We are here to show that we are not afraid,” said Nazar Novoselsky,
who joined the march across Kyiv’s central avenues with his two little
children.
“We will lay our
soul and body for the cherished freedom,” the crowd sang — words from the
national anthem — just as they had done en masse in the months leading to
Ukraine’s 2014 pro-EU revolution.
After the 2014
revolt the Kremlin annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and backed an insurgency
across parts of the former Soviet republic’s Russian-speaking industrial east.
Relations
between Moscow and Kyiv have been severely strained ever since, with that
tension showing in the crowd.
Many showed
their support for NATO — the Western defense alliance at the heart of Russia’s
dispute with the West.
Russian
President Vladimir Putin wants binding security guarantees that NATO will never
expand into Ukraine, also demanding that it pull out of eastern European
countries that were under the Kremlin’s influence during the Cold War.
But a pledge to
join NATO is written into Ukraine’s new constitution, and Washington has
rejected the Kremlin’s demands.
“Into NATO,
immediately,” said one sign, held up by Oleksiy Tkachenko, a 70-year-old
retiree.
“Why should Putin be
telling us what to do,” Natalia Savostikova, a 67-year-old doctor, demanded.
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