Thousands of demonstrators marched across Europe on Friday to protest the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A year after the start of the war, a destroyed Russian tank was displayed in front of the embassy in Berlin, the gun aimed at the entrance.
From the UK to the Baltics, leaders from across Europe attended the ceremonies to show their unwavering support for Ukraine and to commemorate the victims of the conflict.
The crowd fell silent for a minute on Freedom Square in Tallinn, the Estonian capital, where European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg met to commemorate the dead.
In London, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also observed a minute’s silence outside Downing Street before the Ukrainian anthem was sung by two singers wearing traditional Ukrainian shirts.
– A tank in the middle of Berlin –
In the German capital, which remained a symbol of the Cold War with the Wall cutting through it for almost 28 years, thirteen demonstrations were held, bringing together thousands of people: eleven for Ukraine, one against arms supplies and one for peace.
The largest of them, organized under the motto “We will never forget”, had around 8,000 participants, according to a police spokeswoman.
At the Berlin International Film Festival, a demonstration of solidarity with Ukraine brought dozens of film personalities together on the red carpet, including the president of the jury, American star Kristen Stewart, who waved Ukrainian flags and signs in the colors of Ukraine.
In West Germany, between the cities of Osnabrück and Munster, around 18,000 people formed a human chain for peace and held hands for minutes.
In the morning, in the heart of the German capital, just a few steps from the Brandenburg Gate, passers-by could see a Russian tank that activists had towed away during the night to place it in front of the Russian embassy.
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This unusual image had attracted many curious on Friday morning, including classes visiting schools.
“We drove by and saw a crowd, it’s strange to see a tank like that,” Allen Eapen, a 22-year-old Indian man studying in the city, in the middle of Berlin, told AFP.
The 1985 T-72 B1 tank was probably destroyed by a mine on March 31, 2022 near Boutcha in the Kiev suburbs. Some of the chains are crushed, as is the turret, partially pulverized.
The Ukrainian ambassador in Berlin, Oleksiï Makeyev, went to the place where the wreck is located at noon.
– From Bucharest to London –
In Bucharest, a few hundred people, mostly Ukrainians and many children, marched to the Russian embassy shouting: “Crimea is Ukrainian!”, “Terrorist Russia!” or “Stop the war!”.
Thousands gathered in Sofia on Friday in front of the Bulgarian Presidency building and waved yellow and blue flags.
Demonstrations also took place in Warsaw and Bern, while diplomats from around 30 countries gathered in close proximity to the United Nations in Geneva, also as a sign of solidarity with Ukraine.
In Paris, the Eiffel Tower was illuminated in yellow and blue colors on Thursday evening, as were the European Commission and Parliament buildings in Brussels, or the National Theater in Warsaw and the Place d’Armes in the heart of Luxembourg.
Hundreds of people gathered in the French capital on Friday night to pay tribute to the “heroic” resistance of the Ukrainian people.
In Marseille, France’s second largest city, several hundred people gathered in front of City Hall in a cloud of Ukrainian flags with signs reading “All the world stands with Ukraine” (“Everyone supports Ukraine”).
This meeting took place not far from the anchorage of the Ukrainian city of Odessa and was relocated to the Old Port for a year to commemorate the twinning of the two port cities.
Shortly before, a hundred people had gathered near the Place du Capitole in Toulouse, a twin city of Kiev. Other demonstrations took place across France, from Strasbourg in the east to Lille in the north.
In London, gallons of paint were dumped outside the Russian embassy to repaint the street in Ukrainian colours, and hundreds of Britons descended on Trafalgar Square to mark the occasion.
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