About 100 Ukrainians and supporters protested outside the de facto Russian embassy in Taipei yesterday to tell the world that “Russia is the aggressor” ahead of the third anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“We are here to remind the world that Russia is the aggressor,” Korean-Ukrainian Oleksandr Shyn, one of the organizers, said at the event outside the de facto embassy — officially the Representative Office in Taipei for the Moscow-Taipei Coordination Commission on Economic and Cultural Cooperation.
Shyn’s remarks were made in an apparent reference to US President Donald Trump’s recent claim that Ukraine started the war with Russia.
Photo: Yu Chien Huang, AFP
“You should have never started it,” Trump said about Ukraine while criticizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who had expressed concern that his country was not included in the “peace” talks between the US and Russia in Saudi Arabia.
Shyn said the US’ change of stance on Ukraine has left many Ukrainians feeling “betrayed.”
“We hope this [situation] will change,” he said.
Trump also recently labeled Zelenskiy a “dictator” who refuses to hold elections.
There is no question that Zelenskiy is the legitimate president of Ukraine and commander-in-chief of the army, Shyn said.
“We have martial law right now enacted and we cannot have the elections, we cannot endanger our people’s lives by having elections,” he said.
Under Ukraine’s constitution, it is not legal to hold national elections during a period of martial law.
Shyn also said that Ukraine is not opposed to making sacrifices to end the war.
“As the new realities show, we now live in an extremely transactional world. We’ll have to give something and we’ll have to offer something for the help we get, but I hope this will be rational,” he added.
Shyn said the protest was also meant to continue rallying support on behalf of Ukraine, particularly given the invasion has gone on for three years.
“We have a very general message, first of all, to ask for people to support us, but this time, of course, to support Ukraine’s agency and Ukraine’s will and Ukraine’s right to exist,” he said.
“And we also want to remind, as people living in Taiwan, to remind the world that Taiwan is supporting Ukraine, that this country on the other side of the world is standing with the people of Ukraine,” he added.
As of this month, Taiwan’s government has allocated more than US$130 million for infrastructure projects in Ukraine, such as bridges, hospitals, churches and schools, while private donations have exceeded US$32 million, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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