Pat O’Dea – Deport Georgii Zuev

Deport Georgii Zuev

Continuing the tactics of targeting civilians perfected in Grozny, Aleppo and Mariupol.
In the last two days the Russian Federation bombed an apartment building in the Capital Kyiv on Sunday, and a crowded shopping mall in the city Kremenchuk on Monday.

The attack on the apartment block wounded one child and killed her father. The bombing of the crowded shopping mall killed 13 shoppers.

We need to send a strong message to Russia expressing our disgust, and condemning this behaviour.

The New Zealand government needs to listen to the New Zealand Ukrainian expat. community, and expel the Russian ambassador.

This is the very least we can do to show our disgust – our trade links with Russia are slight, the most immediate thing we can do to put maximum pressure on, and embarrass the Russian Federation, is send their ambassador and his staff packing.

It is not like the Russian ambassador to NZ, Georgii Zuev, is an innocent party;

…….The Russian embassy in New Zealand is using social media posts to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, reigniting a call for Russia’s ambassador to be expelled….. …..A Facebook post by the embassy on March 10 claims a Russian strike on a maternity and children’s hospital in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol was evacuated and being used by Ukrainian forces as a firing site….

New Zealand Ukrainian Anton Ognyev said the Russian embassy’s propaganda was dangerous and had the potential to make Russians in New Zealand turn on Ukrainians in New Zealand.

He could not understand how an embassy in the middle of Wellington was able to get away with posting propaganda.

“They just keep doing it like they are in the middle of Moscow.”

Roman Kashpir, on behalf of Friends of Ukraine, has set up a petition calling for the ambassador to be expelled and for diplomatic relations with Russia to be severed. It had 413 signatures as of Thursday.

….The Amstor mall was crowded with shoppers on Monday afternoon when at least one missile struck it, according to Ukrainian officials. The Ukrainian Air Force Command said the mall had been hit by at least one Kh-22 missile fired by Tu-22 M3 long-range bombers operating in Russia’s Kursk region, near the border with Russia. Kremenchuk, a city of more than 200,000 before the invasion, is a large industrial center for the region.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/06/27/ukraine-shopping-mall-russian-strike-kremenchuk/

….Ukrainian rescue services pulled a 7-year-old girl from the partly-destroyed building. Her father was reported to have been killed and her mother injured.

….Touring the site of the missile strike on Sunday, Vitali Klitschko, Kyiv’s mayor, accused Vladimir Putin of committing genocide.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/russia-ukraine-war-missiles-strike-kyiv-hours-after-vladimir-putin-rushed-to-kremlin/SXAM53JWTW6XVANSVLZX5UAJWU/?

Pat O’Dea is a trade unionist and human rights activist.

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