Alberta’s Ukrainian community is nervously watching events unfold overseas.
Many fear for the safety of friends and family back home after Russian troops launched a large-scale military attack on Ukraine Thursday.
The City of Calgary released a statement on the situation.
“On behalf of Mayor Jyoti Gondek, Calgary City Council and in partnership with city manager David Duckworth and city administration, the City of Calgary has raised the flag of Ukraine at the Municipal Building to show support for a sovereign nation under a horrifying and unprovoked attack,” the statement read. “We stand in support of the Ukrainian community in our city and the people who have close ties to their homeland.”
Members of Calgary’s Ukrainian community gathered at city hall over the noon hour on Thursday.
A Calgarian wipes away tears at a pro-Ukraine rally at city hall Feb. 24, 2022.
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Ukraine-born Igor Kyryiluk’s father and extended family are all overseas. He said a bomb went off as he was speaking to his dad Thursday.
“The most ironic thing is that I was telling my dad that the war is coming, but nobody ever believed me,” said Kyryiluk.
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“He was telling me that under any circumstances he won’t leave the city because my grandmother still stays there. She has a broken ball in her hip so she can’t move fully, so he has to take care for her. And he was saying that he’s not going to surrender.”
A man who identified himself as Vasili claiming Ukrainian heritage showed up to support his friends and family back home.
“It’s a terrible thing that’s going on,” he said. “I’m here just to support. Nothing we can do more, right?”
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Vigils are being planned across the province to show support for the people of Ukraine. Calgarians are invited to gather at the Peace Bridge at 5 p.m. Thursday and the Alberta Provincial Council of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress is organizing a rally at the Alberta Legislature at 7:00 p.m.
“The Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Ukrainian people will resist and will fight for their freedom until the day that the Russian enemy is expelled from their land,” the congress said in a news release.
“The governments of the free world state that they stand with Ukraine. They must do so now in deed, not in word,” the congress said. “All efforts must be marshalled in the coming days in support of the Ukrainian peoples’ right to statehood and self-determination.
“Putin and his criminal regime will meet the end that awaits all tyrants and despots.”
Alberta has the second largest population of Ukrainians in Canada, with just over 330,000.
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