Statements Delivered at a Rally In Front of the Russian Consulate inToronto, 16 February 2014
Supporting the rally were Conservative Members of Parliament representing the Government of Canada: Ted Opitz, MP (Etobicoke-Center),
Bob Dechert, MP (Mississauga-Erindale), and Wladyslaw Lizon, MP (Mississauga East-Cooksville) who also addressed the protestors.
Yuri Shymko, Fmr MP & MPP
President of the International Council In Support Of Ukraine:
We have gathered here today to protest the brutal interference in the internal affairs of Ukraine by the repressive, Facsist and homophobic regime of Vladimir Putin.
Our demands are simple: Putin, hands off Ukraine!
We are also here on behalf of the people of Russia to protest Putin’s violent crack down of the democratic opposition, the suppression of free speech and the destruction of civil liberties amid his own Russian people.
We protest Putin’s arrests of Russian journalists and his recent closure of the only ndepenent tv station inRussiabecause they supported the cause of the Euromaidan inUkraine.
That is why we say: Putin, hands off Ukraine!
Ukraine’s full intergration with the eu is not only in the interest of the people of Ukraine but is also in the interest of the people of Russia, of Europe and the world.
A victory of the Euromaidan means the end of Putin’s autocratic regime. Putin’s greatest fear is that the succes of the protests in Kyiv will reverberate with a liberating effect on the streets of Moscow.
Ukraine’s refusal to become a perpetual sattellite of Russia in the embrace of a customs union means the end of Putin’s dream. It is a dream of becoming the unchallenged world leader of a renewed soviet union, called Eurasia.
Last July in a closed door meeting in Kyiv putin told president Yanukovych and the members of the government that he would stop at nothing and use every means at his disposal to prevent the signing of the special agreement with the EU.
The government should have told him: Putin, hand off Ukraine!
After an aggressive political campaign of intimidation, economic blackmail, trade blockades, sanctions on exports and threats of shutting oil and gas supplies Yanukovych finally handed Ukraine to Putin.
Today we are united with the people ofukrainewho condemn this treacherous act and are declaring in unison: Putin, hands offUkraine!
As the first protests erupted in Kyiv on the night of November 21st, Putin dispatched to Ukraine Vladislav Surkov, deputy head of his administation to help crush the opposition and further distabilize Ukraine. Surkov is an odious figure in Russia who masterminded Putin’s fraudulant elections and orchestrated the violent repression of democratic organizations and public protests in Moscow.
That is why we are standing here demanding: Putin, hand off Ukraine!
While the blood of innocent men and women stains the snow-covered streets and squares of Ukraine’s capital, with 4 murdered and 1750 wounded protesters, 136 journalists beaten and 35 demonstrators unaccounted for, the world continues to be silent about the Kremlin’s involvement.
None of the statements and resolutions echoed thus far in the parliaments of free nations inCanada, in the us and in Europe mentionRussiaor condemn Putin’s regime. The world is mezmerized by Putin’s winter games in Sochi, just as it was by Hitler’s 1936 Olympics in Berlin before Nazi Germany engulfed Europe in the flames of WWII.
What we want to hear in Ottawa, Washington and the capitals of Europe are the simple words: Putin, hands off Ukraine!
On January 28th at the EU Russia summit in Brussels Putin stood firm justifying his intervention in Ukraine to block its entry into the EU. A few days later, at the security conference inMunich, his KGB buddy Lavrov even had the audacity of blaming the us and the EU of interference in the internal affairs ofUkraine.
What the world should have heard in Brussels and in Munich is: Putin, hands off Ukraine!
Putin has gotten away with ordering the assassinations of his critics, the journalist Politkovskaya, the defector Litvinenko and most likely his political ennemy Berezovsky. He continues his brutal Genocidal campaign against the non-Russian population in the Caucusus. His army is still occupying parts of Geogia.
In Syria Putin continues to supply weapons to the bloody regime of Bashar Al-Assad despite the killing of 120,000 people and forcing almost two and a half million refugees to flee abroad. Yet he is portrayed as a champion of peace and stability.
Whatever concessions Yanukovych may promise to the opposition to buy time before his demise, he no longer rules his coutry. Putin does. He is the criminal godfather of Ukrainian oligarch v. Medvechuk, whom Putin is grooming to be the next pro-Russian president of Ukraine.
The road map of aggression in Ukraine is being drafted by the FSB (Russia’s new name for the KGB) headquartered in Sevastopol to be implimented in Kiev by Andrei Kluyev, the new head of the presidential administration.
As the Sochi Olympics come to an end, Putin will cease at nothing to stop Ukraine’s intergration with Europe even if it means destabilizing the country, shutting off Ukraine’s gas supply, breaking the country apart, declaring Sevastopol Russian territory or occupying Crimea under the pretext of protecting the Russian population from a pending civil war.
This is why he must be stopped: Putin, hands off Ukraine!
To avoid a major international geopolitical crisis the us, Canada and its EU allies must immediately condemn Putin’s violation of to rules, the OSCE human rights guarantees and Russia’s violation of the 1994 Budapest protocols assuring Ukraine’s security, independence and territorial integrity.
They must tell him loud and clear: Putin, hands off Ukraine!
We ask Canada’s minister of foreign affairs, the hon. John Baird to immediately summon Russia’s ambassador and tell him in no uncertain terms that Canada will not tolerate any Russian overt or covert aggression against Ukraine’s sovereign territory and appropriate measures will be taken to stop it.
He should tell Putin “hand off Ukraine!”
We cannot predict the unfolding of events in Ukraine. More blood may be shed. The path to success may be painfull. What is predictable is that the people of Ukraine and those young students at the Euromaidan will prevail. Victory is on their side because liberty, justice and the truth will never be vanquished.
Slava Ukraini!
OREST STECIW,
PRESIDENT OF THE LEAGUE OF UKRAINIAN CANADIANS
We are gathered here today because we are outraged at the ongoing threats to Ukraine’s sovereignty and independence, and to the freedom of the Ukrainian people, made continually by the Russian regime, in particular President Putin. We are gathered here today to condemn Russia’s policies to undermine and destabilize the Ukrainian state, and demean and discredit the people of Ukraine.
• We condemn Putin’s contempt for the existence of an independent Ukraine.
• We condemn statements by Glazyev, Putin’s advisor, threatening Russian intervention to supposedly guarantee the security of Ukraine.
• We condemn the Russian regime’s attempts to divide Eastern and Western Ukraine.
• We condemn the fact that the Russian regime openly encourages Ukraine's governing authorities to use brutal force to suppress human rights and freedoms.
• We condemn the baseless statements made by Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov characterizing the mass protest movement in Ukraine as being financed and orchestrated by Europe and the United States.
• We condemn the Russian regime’s use of economic pressure and blackmail to undermine Ukraine.
• We condemn Putin’s demeaning statements about Ukraine and its people, we condemn the psychological war waged by the Russian regime against the Ukrainian people, while at the same time supporting the corrupt Yanukovych regime with its Fifth Columnists inviting Russian special forces to do its dirty work, and allowing Russian FSB agents to run free in Crimea and southeastern Ukraine, in order to organize groups of hired thugs to beat peaceful protesters.
WE CALL UPON PUTIN AND THE RUSSIAN REGIME TO STOP INTERFERING IN THE INTERNAL AFFAIRS OF UKRAINE.
WE ASK THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY:
• to condemn the above-mentioned reprehensible actions on the part of the Russian regime; and
• to defend the territorial integrity and sovereignty ofUkraine
We ask the West, Canada, the European Union and the United States to speak with one voice, loudly and clearly, before it is too late – Mr. Putin stop interfering in the internal affairs of Ukraine
OR ELSE a) Russia will be excluded from the G8
OR ELSE b) Russia will be excluded from the WTO
OR ELSE c) there will be no cooperation on Syria, on Iran, on Afghanistan, and on the question of installing NATO missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic
The West must remind Putin at WTO meetings that “trade wars will not be tolerated”.
The West must remind Putin at OSCE meetings that “gross human rights violations will not be tolerated”.
The West must remind Putin that Russia was a signatory to the 1994 Budapest Protocols that assure Ukraine, guarantee Ukraine the inviolability of its sovereignty.
The West must show open discomfort with Putin’s Ukraine policies at all international meetings.
The West must speak with one voice to confront Russia on these issues before it is too late.
There is no alternative.
Slava Ukraini!
OKSANA REWA, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINIAN CANADIAN CONGRESS,
TORONTOCHAPTER
Homer, the greatest of ancient Greek epic poets stated “Strength is Unity”
It is important that we the Ukrainian Canadian community of Toronto stand fervently united with the focus of providing support and strength for the people of Euromaidan and encourage them, as they work to strive to live in a democratic country where there are human rights, where there is rule of law, democracy and freedom.
Today, we have gathered here together, in front of the Russian Consulate demanding that Putin keep his hands off Ukraine and to cease pressuring Ukraine to join his Customs Union.
To paraphrase an article in today’s Toronto Star by Cathal Kelly, “As average Canadians, we really have no idea what Putin is really about, but we instinctively sense that he is a combination of power and malice. And as good Canadians we are fascinated by the mostly bad, especially when they get away with it. Over the years Putin has projected himself as an expression of raw power. Where ever Putin goes, people get the wobbly knees – except those who have experienced his wrath and that includes the many Russians. Russians – they won’t go anywhere near Putin. Unlike tourists, and those brainwashed by his extensive PR, they know enough to be afraid.
It is important that we, the Ukrainian Canadian community of Toronto and all Torontonians stand united with the focus of providing support and strength for the people of Euromaidan and encourage them, as they strive to live in a democratic country where there are human rights, where there is rule of law, democracy, freedom and justice, something that is not in Putin’s lexicon.
So Putin, as you bask in the sunlight of the 50 billion dollar Potemkin Village of Sochi, we, standing here united, and demand, that you cease and desist in pressuring, in interfering, in intimidating and in blackmailingUkraine.
Get your grubby, blood stained hands off Ukraine and her people.
