An Odesa native living in Rotherhithe whose relative is under Russian occupation has thanked Southwark locals for their support for his homeland in the war.
Builder Stanislav Zhorniak was at an event on Odessa Street in Rotherhithe to show support for Ukraine on Sunday (May 8), the day the country celebrates Soviet victory in the Second World War.
Mr Zhorniak told the people who gathered at the event, which followed a similar occasion at the start of the war in February, about the situation in Odesa, an important port city in the west of Ukraine that is under bombardment by Russia. “I thanked the British people for their support, it means a lot to us,” he told the News on Monday.
“The sky is clear here, but my city is under rockets. It is a horrible situation,” he said. As well as being bombed, Odesa is under blockade by the Russian navy, halting grain exports and potentially causing food shortages in various countries.
Mr Zhorniak’s family lived in Melitopol, a city of 150,000 people in eastern Ukraine that is now under Russian occupation. His parents escaped to the Netherlands, but his uncle and some friends are still there.
“They were threatened a lot by the soldiers” at the start of the occupation, said Mr Zhorniak, who moved to the UK four years ago. “Now it is a bit better… before the soldiers can say things like ‘you are Nazis, you are like animals.'”
Odesa was an important port in the Russian empire and the Soviet Union before Ukraine’s independence. The city’s name is spelled with the equivalent of two ‘s’s in Russian, and the English spelling has traditionally followed suit, which is why Odessa Street also has two ‘s’s. In Ukrainian the city is spelled with one ‘s’ and the common English-language spelling appears to be changing along these lines.
The Odessa Street event came on the same day as a wreath-laying ceremony at the Peace Garden in Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park in memory of Ukrainians killed in wars. Both events were organised by former local MP Simon Hughes.
He said: “It was really good to have events at the Peace Garden and at Odessa Street on the day they mark remembrance of those killed in wars, and commit to peace and reconciliation.”
Sir Simon said he and others at the ceremony want to encourage Southwark Council to support its equivalent part of Kyiv – an inner south-east subdivision of the city. That might be the Darnitskyi or Dniprovskyi district. No formal plans have been put in place yet.