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Dozens rallied steps away from Canada Life Centre in support of Ukraine Saturday afternoon as the 22-month old war wages on.
The rally came a day after an attack on Ukraine that a Ukrainian air force official said was the biggest aerial barrage of the war that began with a Russian invasion in February 2022.
“I [tried] to make a rally, I try to help them in another way, it’s what I can do here,” said organizer Alina Demchuk, who just recently celebrated her second Christmas in Winnipeg after moving from Ukraine.
“If I … just arrive back to Ukraine I can do nothing actually, but here I can help them more than at home.”
Demchuk said Saturday’s rally was urgently needed and its purpose was to show people that the war was still going on. She also said in Winnipeg there are many newcomers, with family members still back in their home country.
“A lot of people just can’t move abroad for different reasons, but we want to save our home,” said Demchuk.
Russia launched 122 missiles and dozens of drones against Ukrainian targets, officials there said Friday. The attack killed at least more than 30 civilians, more than 100 people were injured and an unknown number were buried under the rubble during the roughly 18-hour onslaught, Ukrainian officials said.
The UN Security Council hastily convened later in the day to discuss the attack, which Assistant Secretary-General Khaled Khiari called “appalling.”
Meanwhile on Saturday, Russian missile strikes on central Kharkiv injured at least 21 people, Ukrainian officials said.
The Kharkiv regional chief prosecutor said two boys aged 14 and 16 and a security adviser for a team of German journalists were among those injured. The missiles came from the direction of the Russian border city of Belgorod, he said.
Hours earlier, shelling in the centre of Belgorod killed 18 people, including two children, and injured 111 more on Saturday, Russian officials said.
Russian officials also accused Kyiv of carrying out the attack, which took place the day after Russia unleashed its biggest air attack of the war — an 18-hour aerial barrage across Ukraine that killed at least 39 civilians.
Russia killed dozens in Ukraine after striking residential towers, a hospital and schools in what’s being called the largest aerial attack since the start of the war. Ukraine says it shot down most of the missiles and drones Russia sent, but Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy is vowing to respond for every strike.
“We’re kind of concerned … we need this to stop as soon as possible,” said Oksana Lazarenko.
Lazarenko has been living in Winnipeg for 10 years and said even though some media coverage of the war may have dwindled down, it’s still going on. She said she’s also grateful for Canada’s support in welcoming Ukrainian refugees to the country.
“This war is still going on and it’s never stopped, people are dying — innocent people are dying,” she said. “Maternity hospitals, clinics, residential housing, we definitely need all the support from all over the world to help us to fight.”
Demchuk echoed Lazarenko and also said it’s important to keep up an awareness of the ongoing war.
“I understand that a lot of people from other countries don’t want to listen [to] our problems every day, I understand that,” said Demchuk. “But also in the same way, we want to share the truth, if it will be in the media, if it will be on a radio station, on different TV shows they will know … war is still going on.”
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