Ukrain­ian Asso­ci­a­tion of South Africa Holds Unin­ter­rupt­ed Peace­ful Protests in Cape Town, Dur­ban, and Pre­to­ria

Pre­to­ria, South Africa – Feb­ru­ary 2025

On 24 Feb­ru­ary 2025, the world marked three years since rus­sia launched its unpro­voked full-scale inva­sion of Ukraine—an esca­la­tion of the war that began in 2014 with the mil­i­tary annex­a­tion of Crimea.

Despite Ukraine’s extra­or­di­nary resilience in reclaim­ing near­ly 50% of the ter­ri­to­ries occu­pied since Feb­ru­ary 2022, russia’s bru­tal­i­ty con­tin­ues to inten­si­fy.

To hon­our the vic­tims, demand account­abil­i­ty, and call for a just and sus­tain­able peace for Ukraine, peace­ful protests were held in Cape Town, Dur­ban, and Pre­to­ria. These demon­stra­tions urged South Africa and the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to take a firm stand against russia’s aggres­sion and ensure a just and last­ing peace for Ukraine—one that pre­vents fur­ther war crimes.

Sym­bol­ic Acts of Protest Across South Africa

To high­light the ongo­ing vio­lence per­pe­trat­ed by russ­ian forces not just in Ukraine, but glob­al­ly, UAZA mem­bers staged sym­bol­ic acts at the protests:

• In Dur­ban, pro­test­ers lit can­dles in remem­brance of the Ukrain­ian chil­dren killed by rus­sia.
• In Pre­to­ria, pro­test­ers held up keys to sym­bol­ise the thou­sands of Ukrain­ian civil­ians still held in cap­tiv­i­ty by russ­ian forces. South African dancer Tsholo4elo joined the demon­stra­tion with a dance per­for­mance in sup­port of Ukraine’s forcibly deport­ed chil­dren.

Unusu­al Appear­ances at Protests

Dur­ing the protests Dur­ban, an unknown group of local South Africans appeared near the Ukrain­ian demon­stra­tors. Some held images of Arestovych read­ing “Our Pres­i­dent”, while anoth­er small group car­ried russ­ian flags. When approached, they were unable to explain their pres­ence or whom they sup­port­ed. One of the sup­port­ers said that local per­son gave them funds to come here. 

UAZA mem­bers were informed in advance that there is an activ­i­ty where local peo­ple are brought by buss and are giv­en russ­ian flags. The police polite­ly moved unknown group aside, where they stood silent­ly. No russ­ian music was heard and the UAZA protest was not inter­rupt­ed. 

 

The Ukrain­ian Asso­ci­a­tion of South Africa (UAZA) finds it unusu­al that South African cit­i­zens would hold posters ref­er­enc­ing Arestovych with­out being able to iden­ti­fy who he is or where he comes from. How­ev­er, UAZA’s protests pro­ceed­ed peace­ful­ly as planned.

“South Africa is a demo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try where peace­ful protest is a con­sti­tu­tion­al right—a stark con­trast to russ­ian-occu­pied ter­ri­to­ries, where indi­vid­u­als face per­se­cu­tion, tor­ture, and arbi­trary deten­tion for express­ing dis­sent.” – stat­ed Katery­na Aloshy­na, UAZA Pres­i­dent.

War Crimes and Human Rights Vio­la­tions

This unpro­voked war has result­ed in immense human suf­fer­ing, sys­tem­at­ic human rights vio­la­tions, and an ongo­ing threat to glob­al sta­bil­i­ty, dri­ven sole­ly by russ­ian impe­r­i­al ambi­tion. Over 140,000 war crimes com­mit­ted by russ­ian forces have been doc­u­ment­ed, includ­ing:

• Exe­cu­tions of civil­ians, tor­ture, and sex­u­al vio­lence
• Delib­er­ate destruc­tion of crit­i­cal civil­ian infra­struc­ture
• The forced depor­ta­tion of over 20,000 Ukrain­ian children—illegally giv­en new iden­ti­ties and sep­a­rat­ed from their fam­i­lies
• Sys­tem­at­ic exe­cu­tion of Ukrain­ian pris­on­ers of war, with 147 doc­u­ment­ed cas­es, 127 of which occurred in 2024

russia’s full-scale inva­sion is not just about ter­ri­to­r­i­al conquest—it is an attack on sov­er­eign­ty, democ­ra­cy, and inter­na­tion­al law. Using tac­tics such as scorched-earth war­fare, bru­tal occu­pa­tion, forced depor­ta­tions, and the sup­pres­sion of Ukrain­ian cul­ture, rus­sia is attempt­ing to erase Ukraine’s iden­ti­ty.

The Dev­as­tat­ing Impact of russ­ian Aggres­sion

Since Feb­ru­ary 2022, russ­ian aggres­sion has result­ed in:

• 11 mil­lion Ukraini­ans dis­placed
• Tens of thou­sands of civil­ians killed, includ­ing hun­dreds of chil­dren
• Entire cities—Mariupol, Vovchan­sk, and Bakhmut—reduced to rub­ble

UAZA remains com­mit­ted to rais­ing aware­ness, advo­cat­ing for jus­tice, and stand­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Ukraine in its fight for free­dom and peace.

ENDS