site.btaDSB Marks Four Years Since Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

Representatives of Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria (DSB) marked fours years since the start of Russian invasion of Ukraine on Tuesday. They arranged children’s shoes on a sidewalk in front of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Sofia, as a symbol of the children’s lives taken during the war. At the site, there were posters reading: “669 innocent children. They will never grow up.”

DSB chair Atanas Atanasov told journalists that this is an extremely sad day, four years since Russia’s aggression against Ukraine began. “We hope that through joint European efforts this war will finally end and that Ukraine will become a full member of the European Union,” he said.

“These are children’s shoes. Hundreds of Ukrainian children have been killed in this war, and thousands have been abducted to the territory of Russia. This aggression is horrific in the heart of Europe. That is why we are here - to express our solidarity with the Ukrainian people,” Atanasov said. He also noted that March 3 is approaching, recalling that the main part of the liberation army at that time consisted of Ukrainians.

Attached to the shoes were tags indicating the ages of the deceased children from Poltava, Kyiv, Kramatorsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih, Odesa, and other cities, who were killed in missile or drone strikes, or in artillery shelling in the Donetsk region.

On the street opposite the Russian Embassy, DSB placed a billboard reading, “Russia is a terrorist state!” It also listed the number of civilians killed and injured, as well as the number of children killed and abducted over the four years of the war in Ukraine.

Among those present at the DSB event were MP Yavor Bozhankov from Continue the Change–Democratic Bulgaria and former MP Stoyan Mihalev.