Today, on Black Ribbon Day, the Ukrainian World Congress joins the world in paying tribute to the survivors and victims of Communism and Nazism in Europe. We also stand in solidarity with all those worldwide who continue to fight against the brutality, violence, and repression of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, including Ukraine’s brave defenders fighting for the freedom and independence of their country against Russia’s atrocious full-scale invasion and genocidal war.
Black Ribbon Day marks the somber anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Signed between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in 1939 to divide Central and Eastern Europe, the infamous pact set the stage for the appalling atrocities these regimes would commit. The Soviet and Nazi regimes brought untold suffering upon people across Europe, as millions were murdered, persecuted, and denied their basic rights and dignity.
Today, the horrors and terror of the Second World War are happening again on Ukrainian soil. In Ukraine, the Russian occupiers are committing terrible war crimes and genocide, indiscriminately inflicting carnage on Ukrainian people, bombing peaceful cities, destroying critical infrastructure, residential buildings, schools, and hospitals, illegally deporting children, and conducting artificial replacement of population on the occupied Ukrainian lands.
In early May 2023, the parliament of Ukraine officially recognized and condemned the heinous ideology of Rashism, used and promoted by the Putin regime, and its practices as totalitarian and misanthropic.
The world now witnesses a new powerful threat, a new rise of authoritarian regimes worldwide, led by the criminal Putinist Russia, which is waging an extermination war against Ukraine, trying to wipe out the Ukrainian people and threatening the world with nuclear terrorism. The Russian dictator glorifies the Stalinist era and dreams of crippling Trans-Atlantic unity and the rules-based international order to bring the world back into the times of colonialism and empires.
“On Black Ribbon Day, we honor the victims and survivors of Communism and Nazism and hope that the international community will heed history lessons and stand strong and united to stop the deadly terrorist Russia. We again call upon global leaders to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terror and provide Ukraine with the weapons and financial support necessary to push back the murderous Russian marauders,” stated UWC President Paul Grod.
Today, the democratic international community must be united as never before. We will only defeat the evil and overcome the new deadly challenges for freedom and human dignity through our unity.
