HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. — As war raged for the 9th day in Eastern Europe, the Guitar Hotel was glowing in blue and yellow in Broward County. The colors of the Ukrainian flag were also on display at other landmarks around the world.
There was suffering and fear in cities in southeastern Ukraine Thursday and Friday. Russian troops shelled a building in a nuclear plant compound in Zaporizhzhia. A man convulsed with grief after his 16-year-old son died. The boy was playing soccer near a school when an explosion fatally injured him in Mariupol.
Ilona Nesterova has been following the tragedy from home in South Florida. The Ukrainian American was among the hundreds who met outside the Hallandale Beach City Hall on Thursday to demonstrate against the war. Russian Americans were also there to protest Vladimir Putin.
“He is destroying kids’ schools with missiles and he’s killing the people of Ukraine,” Nesterova said.
Inna Polutska, a Ukrainian American who lives in South Florida, was also at City Hall. She joined the demonstration hoping that world leaders will get their message and move to protect innocent Ukrainians and respond to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s desperate pleas for help.
“We need to support Ukraine. We need to close Ukrainian skies. We need to start supporting the military better,” Polutska said.
Some of the demonstrators were in tears because they have relatives who are now among the more than one million refugees of war or the fighters who are risking it all to defend their homeland.
Raphael Nagli, Ukrainian American in Hallandale Beach, said the attack in the nuclear plant compound, really frightened him. Kat Pirog, who was also out demonstrating in Hallandale Beach, felt the same way.
“I am outraged. I feel despair, I feel helpless,” Pirog said.
Related reports
Economic impact
- Fed’s Powell: Russia’s war on Ukraine will worsen inflation
- Asian shares slide as Russia shells Ukraine nuclear plant
Effects of sanctions
- Local Lukoil gas stations feel sting of Russia backlash
- EXPLAINER: A look at West’s tightening sanctions on Russia
International relations
- Breakdown of US-Russia diplomacy runs deep, beyond Ukraine
- China denies asking Russia not to invade until post-Olympics
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