Ukrainians will ask the Assembly of the Republic to recognize Russia as a terrorist state and to support the investigation of war crimes committed against Ukraine, the president of the Association of Ukrainians in Portugal said on Sunday.
Speaking to Lusa, Pavlo Sadokha said that the request will continue through a letter addressed to the President of the Assembly of the Republic, Augusto Santos Silva, following two recent cases: the bombing of the old Olenivka prison, in the province occupied Donetsk by the Russians, who killed at least 50 Ukrainian POWsand the castration of a Ukrainian citizen.
The video appears to show a Russian soldier castrating a Ukrainian prisoner. kyiv says Russia is “a country of cannibals who enjoy torture”
On Sunday morning, a few dozen Ukrainians demonstrated in front of the Russian embassy in Lisbon against the attack that killed 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war in the breakaway Donetsk region, in a protest in which the still Ukrainian ambassador to Portugal participated, Inna Ohnivetsduring which the demonstrators precisely asked for the recognition of Russia as a terrorist state and displayed posters with images of the attack and of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Russia is a terrorist state.” Ukrainians protest in Lisbon against the attack that killed 50 prisoners of war in Donetsk
In the letter that they will send to Augusto Santos Silva, to which Lusa had access, the Ukrainians in Portugal appeal to the Assembly of the Republic —“as a show of support for the Ukrainian people and for justice to be done”— to support “the process of investigation and prosecution of crimes committed by the Russian Federation in Ukraine”, “qualify the Russian Federation as a terrorist state” and “recognize the acts committed by the Russian Federation in Ukraine as crimes of genocide”.
The seriousness of the situation demands that words of solidarity be followed by concrete actions. We are sure that Portugal will not be insensitive to our appeal”, they consider.
The Ukrainians highlight the specific case of Friday’s attack on a prison in Donetsk, which destroyed “the building in which the Ukrainian prisoners of war were held.”
According to information from the invaders themselves, more than 50 Ukrainian servicemen were killed and 140 wounded. Also according to the same sources, none of the prison guards or Russian soldiers present at the scene were killed or injured as a result of the bombing. After what happened, Russia was quick to accuse Ukraine of having been responsible for the bombing of the prison camp, allegedly using US weapons. However, all the indications point to a deliberate act, by the Russians, with the aim of killing the Ukrainian prisoners”, they consider.
The authors of the letter emphasize “further recent evidence of the inhumanity of the Russian invaders”which was the castration of a Ukrainian prisoner of war.
These two heinous crimes are part of an already long series of atrocities, in which Ukrainian civilians, including children, are killed or subjected to deportation, torture and rape. We are facing a set of crimes that demand the urgent condemnation of all civilized nations, including Portugaland that they cannot fail to be recognized for what they really are: acts of genocide against the Ukrainian people committed by a regime that practices State terrorism”, they justify, considering that “The Russian political and military authorities aim to eliminate as many Ukrainians as possible, destroy the country and erase its national identity.“, which makes negotiation and dialogue impossible.
In the protest this Sunday in Lisbon, the demonstrators used phrases like “I am Azov”, “Assassin, leave Ukraine alone”, “Russia is a terrorist state” (“Russia is a terrorist state”), “Your country could suffer the next #terror Russia” (“Your country may suffer the next terror from Russia”), “Stop Russia’s aggression” (“Stop Russian aggression”) and “Putin #HUILO#” (referring to a popular Ukrainian song that makes fun of the Russian president).
The missile attack on a prison in Yelenovka, in the breakaway Donetsk region, on Friday caused 50 dead and 73 seriously injured among the Ukrainian prisoners, according to Russia, some of them members of the ultranationalist Azov battalion, which surrendered in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, taken by the Russians.
Pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine accused kyiv forces of attacking the prison with missiles. “allegedly HIMARS (North American Multiple Launch Rocket System)” and the Russian Defense Ministry even blamed the attack on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the United States of America (USA).
Moscow and kyiv accuse each other of attacking the prison and killing dozens of prisoners
On the other hand, the intelligence services of the Ukraine accused the Russian private military company Wagner of having operated the attack. and the Ukrainian military accuses Russia of maintaining its “propaganda methods of conducting an information war to accuse the Armed Forces of Ukraine of bombing civilian infrastructure and the population, thereby concealing its own insidious actions.”
Ukraine has asked the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to send a mission to Donetsk to investigate the attack.
Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-backed separatist leader, said the prison had 193 inmateswithout specifying how many were Ukrainian prisoners of war.
More than 2,400 Ukrainian soldiers in Mariupol they were taken prisoner after almost three months of fighting for the port of Azov, where they took refuge in the Azovstal steel complex, and their resistance has become a symbol of the Ukrainian struggle against the Russian invasion that began on February 24.
Source: Observadora
