Ukrainians rallied in Zagreb's main square on Saturday, joined by Croatian citizens and political officials, a day after the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine to call for the continuation of assistance to Ukraine in its fight for freedom.
The Ukrainians carried blue and yellow flags and banners which said “OUT of Ukraine, you small crocodile psycho,” “#armUkrainenow” and “Russia is a terrorist state”.
Today’s gathering, called “Croatia for Ukraine”, was initiated by Ukrainian Ambassador Vasyl Kyrylych, who commended the Ukrainians’ strong spirit over the past 366 days and said it was time to “drive (Russia) out of Ukrainian territory.”
“The enemy, the devil, understands only one language and speaks only one language, the language of force,” he said.
Thousands of people have been killed, millions are refugees, the infrastructure has been destroyed, and mass graves are being found, and Kyrylych compared the suffering of Ukrainian cities with that of Vukovar, eastern Croatia in the 1991-95 war.
“When I say Mariupol, I think of Vukovar, a town of martyrs. And there are more than a dozen such Vukovars in Ukraine,” he said at the rally where he was joined by ambassadors of EU member states and of Ukraine’s friends.
The rally was co-organised by the City of Zagreb and Mayor Tomislav Tomašević said Zagreb “has ensured upbringing and education in city kindergartens and schools” for Ukrainian children, and that “after a number of decades (we) resolved the issue of the Ukrainian Home, giving them city premises in the centre of the city.”
Yana Palyha, a Ukrainian woman who fled Ukraine last April with her three-year-old son and mother, while her husband and father stayed behind, told Hina she was grateful for “the kindness of the people in Croatia” and that she and her family had a lot of love for Croatia.
Her son spends his days in a Zagreb kindergarten as the whole family hopes the war will end soon. “It’s very hard for us. Every day we wait for a text or any message from our family, to find out if they are still alive,” she said.
Croatian War Veterans Minister Tomo Medved said at the rally that Ukraine could count on “the continuation of our strong political, diplomatic, humanitarian, financial as well as military assistance.”
“Different political views are a sign of Croatia’s democracy, but those differences must never be such as to be an obstacle to Croatia’s being on the side of freedom,” Davor Ivo Stier, a member of the Croatian parliamentary committee on European affairs, told the press after the rally.
“The defence of Ukraine is the defence of the European Union,” Croatian MEP Tonino Picula said at the rally. “Putin is more afraid of the spread of European democracy than of NATO. Russia wants to make up for its defeats by terrorising the civilian population. It must not happen that Russia imposes a peace whereby it would turn its conquests into lasting territorial gain.”
“Europe and Croatia will continue to help Ukraine, and freedom, peace and the truth must win in the end,” said another Croatian MEP, Karlo Ressler.
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