CONFLICT ACROSS THE GLOBE
Tanaiste urges free flow of Ukraine aid
TANAISTE Micheal Martin has said there must be no “obstacles or roadblocks” to providing aid and support to Ukraine.
Mr Martin is attending a meeting of the EU foreign ministers in Brussels where they will also hear from Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of the prominent Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny — whose death at a remote Arctic penal colony was announced last week.
Mr Martin said the death of Mr Navalny in detention is a reminder of the “repressive and oppressive” Russian regime.
More than 300 people have been detained while paying tributes to Mr Navalny.
Mr Martin said: “President
[Vladimir] Putin has ruthlessly put down any opposition and suppressed any dissent, freedom of speech, freedom of the right to gather.
“It is quite extraordinary to watch the scenes last evening on television, where people merely putting flowers on the wall in sympathy are dissuaded and there are people about trying to, if you like, eliminate any evidence of significant sympathy for Alexei Navalny in Russia itself.”
He said the European Foreign Affairs Council will empathise and sympathise “very strongly” with the Navalny family. He said this would show that there are alternatives to Mr Putin’s regime.
“It’s quite shocking when you stand back and just reflect on the degree to which the fundamental spirit of the human being is been suppressed in Russia.”
He said this also related to the Council’s discussion of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, adding: “Because that’s what the people of Ukraine don’t want.
“They know what freedom of speech is, they know what a better life is in terms of a democracy.”