Zelenskyy is asking people to ‘come to your squares, your streets’ with Ukrainian symbols in support of ending Russia’s war

• Ukraine’s president is urging people around the globe to gather on Thursday to protest Russia’s war.
• “Come from your offices, your homes, your schools, and universities,” Zelenskyy said in a video.
• Thursday marks the one-month anniversary of Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine.

On Wednesday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on global citizens to “come to your squares, your streets” to protest for an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, a month after Moscow launched its offensive.

“Show your standing. Come from your offices, your homes, your schools, and universities. Come in the name of peace. Come with Ukrainian symbols to support Ukraine, to support freedom, to support life,” Zelenskyy said in a video published by Ukraine’s foreign affairs ministry. 

“Come to your squares, your streets, make yourselves visible and heard,” he continued. “See that people matter, freedom matters, peace matters, Ukraine matters.”

“From March 24, in downtowns of your cities, all as one together to stop the war,” Zelenskyy added. 

March 24, or Thursday, marks the one-month anniversary of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of a “special military operation” in Ukraine.

In Zelenskyy’s address on Wednesday, he said the one month of fighting is “only the beginning for Russia on the Ukrainian land,” and called the attack a “war against freedom as it is.”

—MFA of Ukraine 🇺🇦 (@MFA_Ukraine) March 23, 2022

“Russia is trying to defeat the freedom of all people in Europe, of all the people in the world,” he said. “It tries to show that only crude and cruel force matters. It tries to show that people do not matter, as well as everything else that makes us people.”

Ukrainian forces have so far stalled Russia’s advance in most major population centers, including the capital of Kyiv. The Kremlin, in turn, has been bombarding Ukrainian cities, including strikes on residential areas and hospitals, which Zelenskyy and the US government have condemned as war crimes.

The United Nations’ latest figures recorded 2,571 Ukrainian civilian casualties so far, but it added that the actual toll is likely much higher.