2023-05-06 19:16:50
A total of 38 associations and platforms of Ukrainian immigrants and refugees in Spain have signed an open letter, sent to the government of the Community of Madrid, among other entities, to protest against the celebration this Sunday of the March of the Immortal Regimentthe main annual pro-Russian celebration that takes place in the streets of Madrid, and ask the authorities to ban it.
This march, called by associations close to the diplomatic legation of Moscow, like Blagoe Delo, commemorates the Russian victory over Nazi Germany at the end of World War II, and usually includes the participation of members of the Russian colony in Spain, as well as supporters of the Putin regime and propagandists on social networks. The official commemoration date is May 9, but the March of the Immortal Regiment is celebrated in Madrid this Sunday -leaving from Atocha station- as it falls on a weekday on the 78th anniversary of the Russian takeover of Berlin.
Since last year, the Madrid police have been preparing a special security device to prevent altercations between Russians and Ukrainians during the march.
Misrepresentation
The Ukrainian note denounces that the march is used by the Russian government to misrepresent the current situation of war of aggression against Ukraine. Ukrainians denounce the presence of the Z symbol in the march last year in its editions developed in various European cities, and they hope that this one, “used by Russia as a war emblem in the invasion of Ukraine”, will reappear. Protesters of the Russian march usually wear ribbons of saint georgewith the orange and black colors also worn by the Russian troops and vehicles that have invaded Ukraine.
The signatory entities protest against “state propaganda, misinformation and deliberate distortion” as “a constant of the hybrid warfare that the Russian Federation is waging against Ukraine”. According to the note “this distortion seeks to use the memory of the victory of the Soviet Union over the criminal Nazi Germany in order to justify in the 21st century the same genocide that Adolf Hitler committed in the previous century”.
The signatories warn against “Vladimir Putin’s ubiquitous propaganda and manipulation, present from schools to his powerful diffusion cybernetic network of hoaxes”.
Petition to Madrid
On May 1, the adviser to the Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior Anton Gerashenko regretted on Twitter that the Spanish government has given permission “to the Russian community in Madrid” to carry out the march of the Immortal Regiment. “That march is part of the official Russian war propaganda and a way to support the war.” His message ends by addressing the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the Mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeidato ask them: “Do not spread toxic Russian narratives.”
The Madrid protest note has been joined by Catalan Ukrainian associations -such as the Txervona Kalyna and the Beregynya of Barcelona and the Khortytsya platform of Tarragona- and Basque associations such as the Ukraine-Euskadi Sociocultural Association for Development Cooperation.
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