(Montreal) On Friday, Canadians in turn joined the movement of solidarity towards Ukraine visible elsewhere in the world, while Ottawa announced a new salvo of sanctions against Russia.
Posted at 8:34 p.m.
In Montreal, dozens of people gathered Friday afternoon to denounce the war in Ukraine under a snowstorm, shouting “Putin, hands off Ukraine” (“Putin, take your hands off Ukraine”), under the windows of the Consulate General of Russia, noted an AFP journalist.
“I am against this war”, insists Elena Lelièvre, a 37-year-old Russian engineer, specifying that she “never” voted for Vladimir Poutine. “I hope this is the beginning of the end of this diet, but it comes at a high price,” she laments.
Hair hidden under a green cap, Ivan Puhachov, a computer science student at the University of Montreal, says he is “terrified” by the situation and pleads for the sending of additional military equipment to his country, where his family lives.
“Economic sanctions, of course, will work, but in a few weeks, in a few months…our people are dying because of the tiny aid we’re getting right now,” the 25-year-old lamented.
“Putin and his supporters are assassins” or “stop the war”, could one read on banners.
Some protesters held a covered portrait of Vladimir Putin in a bloody hand, others carried Ukrainian flags that fluttered in the wind.
In recent days, demonstrations have also been organized in Halifax, Winnipeg, Vancouver and Toronto, where a Ukrainian flag has been hoisted at City Hall.
Toronto’s CN Tower and Niagara Falls were lit in the colors of Ukraine, yellow and blue, in support of the country being invaded by Russia.
Several Canadian provinces have announced the withdrawal of products from Russia from liquor stores.
This gesture was decided in “solidarity with the Ukrainian people”, indicated the Minister of Finance of Quebec Eric Girard and “against tyranny and oppression”, abounded his counterpart from Ontario Peter Bethlenfalvy.
On the diplomatic level, Canada announced on Friday a third series of sanctions, specifically targeting President Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, but also the regime of Belarus, in the wake of the new sanctions announced by Washington and the European Union.