Russians among hundreds who come out to protest
‘AMBASSADOR Filatov, slán abhaile,’ chanted the crowds outside the Russian Embassy in Dublin yesterday as public anger mounted over the invasion of Ukraine.
Hundreds of people converged in Rathgar amid growing calls for the expulsion of Russia’s ambassador to Ireland, Yury Filatov. Oksana Pattinson, who was born in Ukraine in 1955, told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘I left in 1982 so that was still the Soviet Union. But what’s happening now is absolutely horrendous.
‘I have absolutely nothing against Russian people, but what the Kremlin is doing at the moment is beyond comprehension.’
Her fellow Ukrainian and demonstrator Kateryna Stepanova said people back home ‘don’t experience a lot of fear or terror’.
She added: ‘They’re just paralysed and doing whatever they can with the resources they have. Even myself, I’m in a safe place but I cannot grasp the reality. I can’t put the words “cruise missile” and the name of my street in Kyiv in the same sentence.’
Russia native Sergey Parshin, who came to Ireland with his wife 11 years ago, said: ‘We feel terribly ashamed about what Russia’s doing now. We couldn’t just stay at home. We wanted to show everyone what we think about it, and that we don’t agree with it.’
Among the Ukraine flags were the colours of two other former Soviet countries – Georgia and Azerbaijan. Georgian Teya Tikaradze explained the impact of Russia’s 2008 invasion of her native land, saying the country has ‘just gone backwards’.
She said: ‘They came and occupied and put in a pro-Russian government. We don’t have democracy. People have been trying to change things, to protest – but they’re arrested like in Russia. I haven’t been home in six years.’
Azerbaijani Yavar Hasanov said his presence at yesterday’s demonstration was ‘about freedom and democracy in all former soviet countries’.
‘Putin is a bully. He is a dictator. And he’s holding all the sovereign nations around him hostage,’ he said.
Labour TD Ivana Bacik told the MoS there was a ‘very personal’ dimension to today’s protest – her family fled to Ireland from the Czech Republic after World War 2 to escape the subsequent communist takeover, her grandfather having been imprisoned by the Nazis before that. She called for a ‘stronger response’ to Russia from Ireland and the EU. ‘We need to expel the Russian ambassador,’ Ms Bacik added. ‘We need to do that unilaterally. ’