Press Release, 26.08.2020

A series of pickets dedicated to the Independence Day of Ukraine took place in Novosibirsk on August 24. The annual public action has become traditional for Novosibirsk thanks to a group of citizens who have been actively advocating normalisation of relations between Russia and Ukraine since 2014 and against the military intervention of the Russian authorities into the affairs of other states. The organisers of the action are members of the Novosibirsk regional branch of the Yabloko party.

“I consider it unacceptable – a possible repetition of the events of six years ago [then in Ukraine] but now already in Belarus, when, under various pretexts coming from our militarist rulers, armed Russian citizens and military equipment ended up on the territory of Ukraine,” Oksana Lukyanets, Yabloko party member, commented on her participation in the picket.

“As residents of one of the cities of Russia, we express our solidarity with independent Ukraine. We sympathise with this country because it suffers from Russian aggression only because it wants to go its own way,” Natalya Chubykina, Yabloko member, said.

Ukraine’s Independence Day is a public holiday of Ukraine, celebrated annually on August 24 in honour of the adoption by the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic of the resolution and the Act of the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, which is considered to be the date of the formation of the state of Ukraine in its modern form.