The Ukrainian community in Argentina will mobilise next Friday for a march on the Russian Embassy in Buenos Aires to mark the first anniversary of the conflict in Eastern Europe.
One year after Russian leader Vladimir Putin ordered his troops to invade, members of the Ukrainian community are eager to protest the outbreak of war and denounce the "large-scale and genocidal" invasion of their homeland.
"Demonstration in protest of one year of Russia's large-scale and genocidal invasion and nine years since the beginning of this war" with the annexation of Crimea, says the call that is spreading through social networks.
The call to mobilise was made by the Central Ukrainian Representation in Argentina, an organisation that brings together various groups of Ukrainians and their descendants in the country.
The meeting point will be the corner of Santa Fe and Callao avenues, at 6.30pm this Friday, marking the first anniversary of the Russian Federation's invasion of Ukraine. From there, according to sources from the local Ukrainian community, demonstrators will move to the Russian Embassy in Buenos Aires (Rodríguez Peña 1741), seven blocks away from the meeting point.
Throughout 2022, Ukrainians in Buenos Aires and their descendants have staged various marches in Buenos Aires City and other cities nationwide in rejection of the war and to defend the territorial integrity of the Eastern European country.
Chargé d'affaires at the Ukrainian Embassy in Argentina, Sergiy Nebrat, this week described Putin as "the Hitler of the 21st century" and indicated that the troops sent by the Kremlin "not only want to occupy territory, but also seek to commit genocide against the Ukrainian people," in an interview with the Telam state news agency.
Conversely, Russia's ambassador to Argentina, Dmitry Feoktistov argued in a separate interview with Télam that it was Ukraine that was in fact closer with the former German fascist dictator.
He said that Russia's "Special Military Operation" –– the Kremlin's term for the conflict –– was launched to begin "the demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine, whose population was inculcated for many years with inherently racist ideas of hatred against everything Russian, leading to discrimination and genocide of Russian-speaking citizens living there and the creation of unacceptable threats to Russia's own security."
Feoktistov continued that "Western aid to Ukraine will not have a significant impact on the outcome of the conflict" and remarked that his country only sees as a possible scenario "the fulfilment of all the tasks outlined in the special military operation."
The origin of the Ukrainian community in Argentina dates back to the end of the 19th century and it has expanded after various immigration swells that have widened the Eastern European community in the country to around 450,00 members.
––TIMES/NA/Telam
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