Dear Friends!
The worst thing in any war is when innocent people, who have no influence over state decisions, die for the misguided causes of politicians. Women, children, the older generation, men who were forced to come to a foreign land on someone else's orders, and those who are defending their homeland.
I dread to think what our grandfathers would say. Those who, with the price of their lives, saved their friends from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and other Soviet republics. Would they have known then, in distant 1940s, that 77 years later we would be killing those for whom they sacrificed their lives and performed heroic deeds.
Now, everyone is hurting: Ukrainians, Russians, Belarusians. It pains me to see the attack on Belarusians who allegedly "failed to finish the job" and somehow became the aggressors, even though thousands of peaceful, innocent Belarusians have been through prisons, torture, beatings, mockery, lost their lives, and have been forced to leave their homes. The whole world watched and is still witnessing the horror which is taking place in Belarus.
Among my acquaintances there is not a single Russian citizen who would not condemn this war and support violence! It pains me to see the accusations the Russian people as a whole, the vast majority of whom are against the war, condemn the fighting and have compassion for Ukrainians. I steadfastly stand against the stigma and responsibility being attached to the whole nation.
It is especially difficult to see the suffering and grief of Ukrainians. A wounded child dying in his mother's arms, people fleeing with their children from bombings, mothers and wives burying their defenders, a car carrying a family of five is hit by a bomb, when (by today’s count) 1.5 million people flee their country in search of safety. It's scary, it's painful, it's unfair and it can't go on like this. I am sure, as shown by history, violence has never created peace! Only by sitting down at the negotiating table can the suffering of millions of people be ended overnight.
Today I would like very much for the wives and mothers of all countries to unite into one movement, a movement for peace! I want us to become a little kinder to each other, no matter how difficult it may be for us now. After all, we women gift the most precious thing - life - and no one should be allowed to take that life away!
Dear women and girls, today I would like to wish peace, so that war, suffering, and grief come to an end soon, and that peace returns to our countries. I do not want to see any more tears, and to feel with every cell of my being, the pain of losing mothers and wives.
We Belarusians are against the war! We are together in joy and sorrow, we have been and will always be with one another in spirit, no one can separate us or make enemies of us, because we have been through too much together.
With love,
Veronica Tsepkalo
Mother, wife, sister
Chair of the Belarus Women's Foundation
#8марта #8march
#FreeBelarusWomen !