WATERLO – A room full of students from the University of Waterloo and Wilfried Lorie is working together to stop a protester who cut off a speech by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday.
The Ukrainian president spoke with university students from across Canada on Wednesday, addressing them in Zoom from Ukraine as the war with Russia continues.
Local students attended a lecture hall on the UW campus, along with students from other sites, including the University of Toronto, the University of Montreal, and the University of Alberta.
The call to Zoom was organized by Deputy Prime Minister Christia Freeland, in partnership with the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Freeland attended the meeting on campus in Toronto.
When Freeland delivered his introductory remarks, the viewing in Waterloo was temporarily interrupted when the protester carried a poster in front of the room with the message “Peace in Ukraine, peace with Russia.” The poster called on Canadian politicians to “stop lying, stop sending weapons, stop NATO and stop the war.”
A security guard tried to pull the placard from the protester, but eventually let it stand in front for about five minutes before sitting down to hear Zelensky’s address. The video of the school, which could be seen by Zelenski, was downloaded during the incident.
When the protester came out in front of the room for the second time, before the audience prepared to applaud Zelensky, the students worked together to remove her posters and take them out of the lecture hall.
When it came time for Waterloo to send his support, the hall erupted in applause for the president.
“The University of Waterloo respects the individual’s right to freedom of expression and recognizes that this right must be exercised in an environment of mutual respect,” said Waterloo spokesman Sam Toman.
“We are grateful for the respectful behavior of all those present at today’s event, but we are concerned about the potential consequences of the person’s actions on the Ukrainian refugees present, which we welcomed in Waterloo as part of our Students at Risk program.”
Halina Padalko, one of 34 Ukrainian students selected to study in Waterloo for the summer, was brought to tears after the address when she spoke about the students who confronted the protester and allowed the video to return.
Padalko has experience in communications and is collaborating with Waterloo artificial intelligence researchers to help them explore the online dissemination of misinformation and propaganda.
The appearance of the protester on Wednesday simply underscored the importance of the survey, she said.
“These people who say to stop the war and stop sending weapons do not understand what is happening in Ukraine,” she said. “If the world stops giving weapons and aid to Ukraine, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin will take over the country and he will continue.
Padalko was in the eastern city of Kharkiv when Russia invaded Ukraine in February. She huddled in the hallways as bombs fell all around her apartment complex, quickly learning the various sounds each bomb, rocket, and shelling made.
She stood for hours in queues that stretched for miles as the townspeople desperately tried to escape before the battle escalated further.
She arrived in Canada on Saturday and said she intends to take the opportunity to learn as much as possible before returning to her husband and family.
Zelensky, dressed in military camouflage and surrounded by two Ukrainian flags, addressed the students for about 10 minutes, outlining the devastation caused by the Russian invasion and the heavy burden that students now bear in the country. He then answered many questions from students from different schools.
The questions ranged from his experience as a comedian to the country’s recent bid to join the European Union.
When a student asked what the country needed, Zelenski’s response reflected his request to governments around the world.
“We need weapons, we need financial support, we need humanitarian support,” Zelenski said, asking students to get involved by putting pressure on their elected officials, joining the marches and continuing to share their thoughts on social media. .
The war is not only broadcast on television, it is on smartphones and tablets, on Twitter and TikTok. Through the power of social media and the Internet, Zelenski said, information can strike more than a gun.
“In today’s world, war has no distance,” he said. If this can happen in Ukraine, it can happen in Canada.
For Padalko, the speech is not something he has not heard before – it is tuned for updates by the Ukrainian president on a daily basis. But she sees the importance of bringing Ukraine’s problems to the doorstep of Canadian institutions so that students can fully understand what is happening.
“I really appreciate the huge support from the people who were there, and not only the Ukrainian students, but all the Canadian students who were there and helped stop (the protesters),” she said.
“People like this are calling for peace, but they don’t know what peace looks like. I have friends who see terrible things, and my country needs the help of the world. “
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