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Ukraine appeals for humanity at solemn independence day commemoration
Ukrainian Ambassador to Indonesia Vasyl Hamianin pleaded for human solidarity during his country’s 31st Independence Day celebration in Jakarta on Wednesday, which also marked six months since Russia invaded.
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A woman reacts as she visits the tomb of her relative, a Ukrainian serviceman who was killed while fighting Russian troops, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, on Independence Day in Lviv, Ukraine, on Aug. 24. (Reuters/Pavlo Palamarchuk)
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n the midst of a war of attrition between Ukraine and Russia, the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia (FPCI) helped host a solemn commemoration of Ukraine’s 31st Independence Day in Jakarta on Wednesday, where Ambassador Vasyl Hamianin spoke out about human solidarity amid adversity.
Exactly six months since Russian President Vladimir Putin mobilized a massive invasion of Ukraine, Hamianin revealed that Kyiv had ordered a temporary halt to public celebrations of the country’s independence day for the first time in its modern history. He said the decision had been made as a precautionary measure against threats of missile strikes from Moscow and noted that the FPCI event was, likewise, not celebratory.
“There are no ceremonies today. No big celebrations,” Hamianin said at the FPCI office in South Jakarta.
Speaking to reporters as well as a handful of publicly pro-Ukraine Indonesian artists and entrepreneurs, the ambassador said that to be an ally of Ukraine was not necessarily to have a shared rage against Russia but rather to cultivate an enduring friendship based on a mutual understanding of humanity.
“This is about friendship. It is not [even] being good. It is about understanding,” he said.
“What Ukraine needs is an understanding of humanity from the world.”
That Indonesia and Ukraine’s independence days were merely days apart, said Hamianin, was just one of the several commonalities between the two countries. At its heart, he said, both Jakarta and Kyiv were always striving for a peaceful state, prosperous people and a developing society.
