Last June, during Pride, we went to cover the Sunny Bunny, the competition that focuses on LGBTQ+ themes, at Molodist 50th Kyiv International Film Festival. Today, we received the following message from our friends at Molodist:
“Dear friends and colleagues,
As you know, Russia has started a full-scale war against Ukraine. Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Uman, Vinnytsia, and many other Ukrainian cities are being bombed by Russian occupiers; regular apartments, kindergartens, hospitals, even ambulance cars – and not only military infrastructure – are under shelling.
Today, Putin has ordered his military to put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert.
Meanwhile, on behalf of Ukrainian citizens, we would like to ask for international support.
We ask you to push your government to order a no-fly zone over Ukraine. This practice was used in Libya in 2011 when NATO suspended all flights over the country’s territory. This measure should be introduced to protect Ukrainian civilians from Russian jets, drones, and missiles.
We ask you to lobby for devastating sanctions on Russia, including a cut-off of the SWIFT banking system, an embargo on the import of Russian oil and gas, the freezing of Russian state assets abroad, and the closure of sea- and airports to Russian ships and planes. To stop the war, the world needs to introduce sanctions with immediate effects.
The National Bank of Ukraine has opened a special account to raise funds for the Ukrainian Army. Anyone from any country can donate: any amount would be very helpful, as will spreading this information. Under this link, you can find bank details for many currencies, including US dollars and euros. Also, you can donate to the International Charitable Foundation ‘Come Back Alive’; you can find details of it here.
We call upon all our partners, colleagues and friends to support Russia’s isolation until its troops leave the territory of Ukraine within its borders according to international law, and until Russia pays compensation for all the damage done to the people of Ukraine by their criminal actions. We ask you to abstain from participating in any film or other event hosted or funded, directly or indirectly, by the Russian Federation: any participation will indirectly legitimise all the horrors Ukraine is withstanding now. We are asking you not to be silent, and to vocally support Ukraine whenever it’s possible.
Any foreigners willing to defend Ukraine and the global order as part of the International Legion of the Territorial Defence of Ukraine can contact Ukraine’s foreign diplomatic missions in your respective countries.
This website gives all the info about Russian aggression towards Ukraine, and all the options to help our country: https://eu-ua.com/
Another website with additional information on how everyone can help: https://ukrainewar.carrd.co/
We hope for your support. Together we defeated Hitler, and we will defeat Putin, too.
#stoprussia #stopputin #standwithukraine #supportukraine”
