Hundreds of people gathered at the Vancouver Art Gallery on Thursday, Feb. 24, to show solidarity with the people of Ukraine, as fighting with Russia intensified in the Eastern European nation.
The spontaneous rally came less than a day after Russian forces began what appears to be an all-out assault on Ukraine, with attacks far beyond the separatist eastern districts President Vladimir Putin has claimed he was authorizing military force to help.
“We cannot contain our pain, we cannot contain our anger, we cannot contain our frustration. We need to be together in this dark time for Ukraine,” Ukrainian Canadian Congress B.C. council president Natalia Jatskevich told Global News.
“I have not slept through this night, because I have family in Ukraine like many other people here today … it’s mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, sometimes wife, sometimes children. I don’t think anyone in this crowd slept.”
The invasion of Ukraine has been met with international condemnation, and on Thursday Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced sanctions targeting Russian elites and major Russian banks in response.
There are an estimated 200,000 people of Ukrainian descent living in British Columbia.
In B.C., the flag of Ukraine was hoisted at the provincial legislature in a show of solidarity, and the cities of Vancouver and North Vancouver said they would illuminate their city halls in blue and yellow.
While the support is appreciated, Ukrainian Canadians told Global News it did little to ease their fears for family in Europe.
“Last night, a ballistic rocket hit five kilometers from my parents home, and my city is thousand kilometers from Russian border. So very far. And I never thought that this would happen,” Father Mykhailo Ozorovych, pastor with the Holy Eucharist Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in New Westminster told CKNW’s Jill Bennett Show from the Vancouver demonstration.
“We thought something that’s going to happen, but definitely not to the scale.”
Despite the position of the Russian government, Ozorovych said he was heartened to see support from the Russian community in Canada for those opposing war.
“Just looking at a beautiful young girl here holding a sign: ‘I’m Russian and I’m against the Russian invasion and war in Ukraine,'” he said.
“Last night, I got a text from my Russian neighbor in New Westminster, saying ‘We are there, praying for you. We are against what’s happening.’ So this is very different than from anything that we’ve seen in the last 30 years since Ukraine has been independent.”
While Canada has joined the international community in applying sanctions on Russia, UBC political science professor Allen Sens said the country will be limited in what it can do to help Ukrainians on the ground.
Sens said Russia appears to have anticipated international sanctions in its calculations about going to war, and believes it can ride out the short-term pain for the long term gain of gaining control of the former Soviet territory.
“If not to conquer it outright, certainly to install a puppet government that will in effect make Ukraine a vassal state of Russia,” he said.
“Canada by itself, other than continuing to provide support to its NATO allies and continuing to provide diplomatic support to the government of Ukraine, there’s really a limited amount of flexibility for us given our power position in world politics.”
Thursday’s rally followed a smaller demonstration outside Vancouver City Hall on Wednesday night.
Another rally is scheduled at the art gallery at 1 p.m. on Saturday.