Ukrainian children among protesters in Dublin demonstration against bloodshed

Ukrainian children were among more than 50 people at a demonstration against the bloodshed in Ukraine outside UN Refugee Agency offices in Dublin.

A row of young Ukrainian children waved red pieces of cloth to protest the killing of other children by Russian forces.

Dressed as an executioner from the hit Netflix series Squid Game and holding a Russian flag and toy machine gun, Olive Kiseleva (27) led the demonstration, while other protestors held up Ukrainian flags and images of civilians injured in the conflict.

Ms Kiseleva, whose family are from Ukraine, said the group were protesting the “bloodshed” in Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities, where children were being killed. “You don’t have tears at this point in time, you don’t have anger ... I need to do my job,” she told The Irish Times.

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She said she was “completely burnt out” from volunteering in refugee reception centres to help Ukrainians arriving in the country.

“A couple of days ago I had like 100 people who are staying in Cork in refugee hotels. They came to Dublin and I was helping them buying meds, clothes, answering most common questions. I am completely emotionally smashed,” she said.

Vlad Dziuba (25), another Ukrainian attending the protest who has lived in Ireland for two years, said he was “scared” for his family still in Ukraine.

Following the news of the Russian invasion was “especially hard” during the first week of the conflict in late February. “There were a lot of unknowns … There was a lot of panic,” he said.

His family live in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, which lies beyond the Donbas region in the east, where Russian forces are launching a large offensive.

“My mother and brother are still in Dnipro, my brother cannot leave the country even if we wanted because he is required to be in the military, and my mother she has an ill leg, so it’s hard for her to leave the country,” he said.

“The only thing that helps me is kind of protesting, doing some political actions, or sending money for the military or humanitarian needs,” he said.

Fatigue

The protest was organised by the Ukrainian Crisis Centre in Ireland, a volunteer group set up to support Ukrainian’s fleeing the conflict.

Wrapped in a Ukrainian flag, Oleg Perekopskiy (19), a second year engineering student in Trinity College Dublin, said it appeared the public were “fatigued” protesting the war.

“I feel like recently people are not protesting as much, it’s not that they’re forgetting but it’s like becoming something normal, people aren’t responding as much to the war crimes, the violence, the attempted genocide”, he said.

“It’s a bit sad to see, I’m the only one out of my friends today who came, which is a little disappointing,” he said.

The student came to Ireland 11 years ago when he was eight years old, with his family previously living in Ukraine near the Polish border.

“Seeing the unity, the resistance of our country, our army fighting the invaders off, it’s inspiring,” he said.