Canadian citizens in Winnipeg rally for Nadiya Savchenko

2015/1/28 11:42:04

< Photo: Nadiya Savchenko, center, is shown in 2004 after completing a grueling training program with the Ukrainian military. Savchenko was captured by pro-Russian separatists, illegally transferred to Russia and has become a symbol of Ukrainian defiance of Russia’s attempts to illegally take over parts of Ukraine.

 


By Carol Sanders for The Carillon, Jan 26, 2015:

 

Winnipeggers rallied Monday night to free a Ukrainian fighter pilot and 30 other Ukrainian soldiers being held as prisoners of war in Russia.

 

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) organized the demonstration in support of Nadiya Savchenko and the others in front of the Manitoba legislature.

 

The 34-year-old Ukrainian woman was captured in eastern Ukraine on June 18 by Russian-backed rebels and transferred across the border to the Russian Federation, said Denys Volkov, one of the Winnipeg organizers of the rally held in Toronto and other major cities around the world Monday.

 

"She’s a one-of-a-kind person," Volkov said of the fighter pilot, Savchenko, who volunteered with the other POWs to fight the rebels in eastern Ukraine.

 

The Manitoba council of the UCC is calling on the federal government to push for their release.

 

"I count on Manitobans to contact their members of Parliament who must work across party lines and with the federal government on assistance in the release of all Ukrainian POWs," Oksana Bondarchuk, president of the UCC Manitoba council, said in a press release.

 

"Russia is violating not only (the) territorial integrity of Ukraine, but also basic human rights of Ukrainian citizens who it illegally detains," she said. "As Canadians we stand up for human rights at home and abroad."

 

For the complete text of the article, link below:

http://www.thecarillon.com/provincial ... eld-as-POW-289798251.html

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