A woman stripped off on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival in France recently to reveal her body painted in the colours of the Ukrainian flag with the words “Stop Raping Us.” This was her way of protesting against what is happening in the war-ravaged country.
The demonstrator shouted and posed for photographers before being whisked away by security guards. The stunt briefly interrupted the proceedings at the much-celebrated film festival. This is not the first time that the festival has been used as a stage to register protests on international issues. But this one was unique because few wars in the post-World War era have lasted as long as the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has spoken about investigators receiving reports of “hundreds of cases of rape” in areas previously occupied by Russian troops, including sexual assaults of small children. The actor-turned-politician launched a video appeal for aid for his country at the Cannes opening ceremony.
The war has already been a major theme at the festival, with a special screening of “Mariupolis 2”, a documentary by Lithuanian director Mantas Kvedaravicius, who was killed in Ukraine last month reportedly by Russian forces. Ukraine’s filmmakers also had an opportunity to showcase their movies at the festival, including Sergei Loznitsa’s “The Natural History of Destruction”, about the bombing of German cities in World War II.
Protests against Russian invasion of Ukraine have been taking place in different parts of the world, including Russia itself. Russian police detained 176 people recently during protests against Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. OVD-Info, an NGO that monitors arrests during protests, said police had detained at least 176 people during demonstrations in 14 cities in Russia.
Police also escorted away people sitting on park benches or just standing around without explaining the reasons for the detention. One of the detained women held a bouquet of white tulips, while another repeatedly exclaimed “No to war in Ukraine!” as she was being taken away.
In Russia’s second city, Saint Petersburg, there were multiple arrests near the city’s Legislative Assembly where around 40 people gathered. Protesters risk fines and possible prison sentences by taking to the streets.
But the war goes on despite escalating protests because Putin and the US-led West seem have turned it into a prestige issue without realizing in the least that there are no real victors in modern wars.
While Putin is accused of starting the war in Ukraine, there can be no denying the role of Western powers in creating the circumstances for it. The eastward expansion of NATO towards Russia’s borders has been ongoing for years despite repeated protests from Moscow. The imminent prospect of the West-led military alliance inducting Ukraine, which shares a long border with Russia, would create a situation too close for comfort for Russia. There was never any doubt about it, no matter how much the Western media and Ukraine itself overlooked those concerns. No good was ever going to come of the NATO membership push, as is starkly evident now.
It is good to see that the war has not been able to break the resolve of the Ukrainian people to defend their motherland at all costs, but it would be infinitely better to see this tragedy finally come to an end.
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