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Displaced Donbas residents hold demonstrations throughout Ukraine

Displaced Donbas residents hold demonstrations throughout Ukraine
Translated by: Anna Mostovych

On Sunday, November 2, the displaced persons from the Donbas held demonstrations titled “Donbas against terror and illegitimate elections” in eight cities in Ukraine to coincide with the fake elections being conduction in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR).

Iryna Perkova, an activist for the Committee of Forcibly Displaced Persons, explained the initiative at a press conference in Kyiv, October 31, as reported by Ukrinform.

Iryna Perkova
Iryna Perkova

“The displaced persons from the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts have organized themselves. We have created a group in Facebook and have decided to hold (these events) in 8 cities of Ukraine — Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Mariupol, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Cherkasy, Sloviansk and Zaporizhzhia, ” she said.

” On the day of the DNR and LNR elections, November 2, we want to create an alternate image for Russian TV. When we held demonstrations for a united Ukraine in Donetsk and Luhansk earlier, Russian media really distorted the information, and most people had a wrong impression of events in the Donbas. Many thought there were no patriots there. We want to demonstrate that there are very many patriots in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and that we want to live in Ukraine. We want to go back home to a Ukrainian Donbas and Luhansk. We will not vote in the pseudo-elections and we will not submit to the governments of DNR and LNR, ” Perkova said.

In Mariupol, on Sunday, November 2, about a thousand people gathered on the central square to demonstrate against Russian terror. Residents came with flags and other Ukrainian symbols and adamantly proclaimed they want to live in a free Ukraine without terrorists, reported Espreso TV, citing the site Mariupol 0629.

Nov2aAt the start of the demonstration, participants sang the Ukrainian national anthem and held a moment of silence for the fallen. A Mariupol resident speaking at the podium encouraged the women of Mariupol to join together to feed the military. “We all know how to cook, so let’s feed our defenders,” she said. A participant hurried to carry out her wishes and distributed chocolate candy to the soldiers on the square.

A soldier of the Donbas battalion, alias Lev (Lion), took the podium, representing the military. He immediately announced that Mariupol is being defended and that he and his friends will do everything possible to preserve peace in the city. “Do not panic; there is no need to be afraid,” he said. “Yes, we are dying, but we knew what we were facing when we went to war. And we will win,” he said to repeated chants of thanks.

The organizers of the demonstration — volunteers for the organization “New Mariupol” — read a resolution in which they appealed to the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada to support the military, to see to the patriotic education of Mariupol residents, and to ensure the return of Novoazovsk to Ukrainian control.

Nov2dProtests against the illegitimate elections and terror in the Donbas were also held in Kyiv and Lviv. Some fifty displaced persons gathered in central Lviv with Ukrainian flags and patriotic symbols to condemn the pseudo-elections in their homeland. They said they wanted to demonstrate their pro-Ukrainian position and declare that Donbas belongs in Ukraine.

In Kyiv, several hundred demonstrators met near the main post office and then proceeded in a column from the Maidan (Independence Square) to Yevropeys’ka Ploshcha (European square). Participants, including Donbas residents and their Kyiv supporters, explained that the choice was not accidental since they want to go in the direction of Europe.  Many expressed fears their native region would become a new Transnistria and encouraged residents to ignore the pseudo-elections.

Translated by: Anna Mostovych
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