Ukrainians rallied Tuesday in the Czech capital of Prague for the second straight evening to condemn this weekโs barrage of Russian missile strikes against cities across Ukraine and to demand more weapons from the West to protect their nation.
The protesters held blue-and-yellow crosses with the names of the cities hit by the Russian missiles.
โUkraine needs air defenses to be able to prevent the massacres of the civilian population and destruction of our cities,โ Anastasiia Sihnaievska told the crowd.
โWe are protecting our right to live,โ said Sihnaievska, who fled her town of Zhytomyr because of the Russian invasion.
People chanted โRussiaยดs terrorist!โ and โMore weapons for Ukraine!โ
They unveiled a giant Ukrainian flag and displayed banners that read โAir defense systems for Ukraine,โ โWe will not forget, We will not forgive,โ or โStop bombing Ukraine.โ
โItโs great that Europe supports us but we need more help,โ said the 21-year-old Ivanna Mykuliak. A student of physics in Odesa, she came to the Czech Republic to work to help support her family in Ukraine.
Protesters who were not Ukrainian also joined the rally.
โUkraine is fighting for us,โ said Julie Levkova, a Czech who helped organize the protest. โI want to use all possibilities I have here and all my energy to fight for Ukraine in the Czech Republic.โ
A similar rally took place in Romaniaยดs capital of Bucharest on Monday.
On Tuesday, the presidents of 10 European nations โ Czechia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Montenegro โ said the deadly Russian missile strikes this week against civilians in Ukraine โconstitute war crimes under international law.โ
โOn behalf of our states, we demand that Russia immediately stop attacking civilian targets,โ they said in a statement. โWe will not cease our efforts to bring to court people responsible of yesterdayโs crimes.โ
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