"It's very painful that two brotherly nations are killing one another," Malachi said. Ironically, some of those same lands east of the Dnieper are being contested once again-more than 300 years later-this time by Ukraine and Russia. That conflict led to the transfer of the Ukrainian lands east of the Dnieper River from the Poles to the Russians. Malachi, who told Newsweek that he was born in Lviv, Ukraine, before emigrating to Austria shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union, traced the roots of the Russia-Ukraine War back more than three centuries to one Bohdan Khmelnytsky, a former Ukrainian leader of the Zaporozhian Cossacks who organized a rebellion against Polish rule in Ukraine in the 1600s. Olga, who emigrated to Vienna from Moscow shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, still celebrates the 9th of May in full Soviet style. "Even though only a few hundred thousand of your fellow Americans died, and even though you now claim that the victory was all yours, and even though you did not open up a second front until 1944, we still honor your contribution, also." "Russians, Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Moldovans-we all died together," she said. "Our victory was the victory of our Russian spirit, and that of all our republics, over fascism," Olga, who had come to the square decked out in Red Army dress uniform cap and a military-style shirt decorated with a wide assortment of Soviet-era medals, told Newsweek. George's ribbons, which have served as a symbol of the holiday since Vladimir Putin's Kremlin organized campaigns to distribute replicas of the Tsarist-era award on the streets of Russia in the run-up to the 9th of May in 2005.Īlthough the Austrian police had set up temporary barriers to prevent the two crowds from mixing, several of the pro-Russian revelers were not permitted to pass through the protective line to the site of the flower laying ceremony. ![]() Pro-Russian figures, by contrast, largely wore orange-and-black St. Olga, a Russian supporter ion the square in Vienna wearing Soviet-era Red Army regaliaĭespite the absence of a fully organized political protest, however, the 50 or so pro-Ukrainian demonstrators who had come to the square were easily identifiable by their blue-and-yellow-and also red-and-black-flags. Russians, Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Moldovans-we all died together. to answer, so we can't do anything that would constitute a political action." Our victory was the victory of our Russian spirit, and that of all our republics, over fascism. "We thought that we would be able to hold a demonstration, but the police wrote us an email at 11 p.m. "We're here because the Russian ambassador will be laying flowers at the monument," Katya, who fled Kyiv during the second week of Russia's full-scale invasion last year, told Newsweek. Since 2014, however, when Russia illegally annexed Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and sponsored the creation of the Donetsk and Luhansk "People's Republics" on the internationally recognized sovereign territory of Ukraine, Ukrainians have increasingly turned away from participation in "Victory Day" celebrations. Until recently it was also celebrated in Ukraine, a country that suffered heavily during the 1941-1945 Soviet struggle against Nazi Germany. In the years since the fall of the Soviet Union, the 9th of May holiday has become something akin to the Russian equivalent of America's Fourth of July. ![]() People wear Ukrainian flags as they bring flowers to the Soviet War Memorial (Heroes' Monument of the Red Army) during a protest against Russia's war in Ukraine at Schwarzenbergplatz in Vienna, Austria, on May 8, 2022. "Because of them, my grandmother is forced to live without water, without medicine, without connection to the outside world, and there's nothing I can do even to visit her, let alone to rescue her from Russian occupation." "But now I can't stand the people who are celebrating today," he said. "Before 2022, I didn't have any strong feelings about May 9 one way or the other," Nikita, a student originally from the largely destroyed Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian town of Rubizhne, told Newsweek. In the shadow of the Austrian capital's enormous Soviet-era World War II monument, pro-Russian revelers slipped through police cordons to lay flowers at the foot of the statue, while pro-Ukrainian protesters on the opposite end of the Schwarzenbergplatz square unfurled a banner reading "Russland = Terrorstaat." On the 9th of May, as Vladimir Putin stood at a podium on Red Square to address television viewers from Kaliningrad to Sakhalin Island, Russians and Ukrainians in Vienna were busy battling over the history of "Victory Day."
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