Nearly 200 people yesterday protested outside the Russian representative office in downtown Taipei, urging the international community to stand with Ukraine and step up efforts to force Russia to halt its invasion of the country.
Protesters also demonstrated on Friday outside the office, called the Representative Office in Taipei for the Moscow-Taipei Coordination Commission on Economic and Cultural Cooperation.
Russian artist Evgeny Bondarenko displayed drawings of a person resembling a cross between Adolf Hitler and Russian President Vladimir Putin and called for the war to stop.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“I feel violated, because I am Russian, I have [a] Russian passport, I am born in Russia with Russian family and Russian friends, but I also have a lot of friends in Ukraine, and I respect and love Ukrainian people,” Bondarenko said.
Russia began its attack on Ukraine without obtaining the permission of the Russian people under the assumption that they agreed, he said.
“I say sorry, but you cannot do it like this and just say Russian people agree with this war. You can’t,” he said.
He said he left Russia because of its policies and traveled the world before coming to Taiwan about five years ago.
“My first time in Taiwan, I started to realize what is freedom,” said Bondarenko, who is married to a Taiwanese woman.
Ukrainian Alex Khomenko, one of the organizers of the rally, said he hoped the Russian military would not conquer Ukraine, adding that he would continue to support his country and keep urging Western countries to back Ukraine.
“I think they are still continuing the attacks, so that is the only thing I will be looking at right now,” Khomenko said.
Khomenko added that there were some parallels between the situation in Ukraine and tensions across the Taiwan Strait, but they were not exactly the same.
However, a Taiwanese at the rally surnamed Chang (張) said the situations are similar.
She felt that some Taiwanese had forgotten their history, so she attended the rally to let Taiwanese know that China could copy Russia’s actions.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas