Demonstrators display a banner in the colours of the Ukrainian flag reading "Stop [Russian President] Putin, Stop war" during a protest at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate on January 30, 2022. - Demonstrators criticised Putin's massing of troops near the Ukrainian border and called on Germany to play a more active role in defending Ukraine's interests. John MACDOUGALL-AFP

It is a crucial moment for all of us who believe in democracy to defend it in our society today. Putin’s invasion is not just an attack on Ukraine. It is an attack on freedom. An attack on democracy. An attack on truth. 

“Today, I have contacted Martha, the delegate of the IYCW International Council 2016. Her family and herself are fine and have left Lviv to move to Ivano-Frankivsk, while Ana, the former leader of YCW Ukraine fled to Poland but her family is in the Chernigov region where the war is taking place,” said Leizyl, the IYCW international treasurer in Brussels.

Leizyl said that she keeps trying to contact Ana by phone, hoping she will read her message.

We call all YCW national movements everywhere to promote peace, unity and solidarity with the people of Ukraine and Russia who do not want war.

We also urge governments to respond with unity, holding Putin’s regime in Moscow and its associates, cheerleaders and supporters to account by imposing far-reaching sanctions, and doing all they can to stop the war in Ukraine.

In the face of fear, choose courage. In the face of division, choose unity and in the face of aggression, choose peace.

This war is not supported by the Russian people. It is the act of a criminal regime, riven with insecurity about democracy because it fears the judgment of its own people.

That is why Putin is brutally cracking down on brave Russians taking to the streets to protest this war. That is why he set himself to spreading lies all over the world. And that is why today, to prevent a flourishing democracy emerging on Russia’s borders, he is willing to kill Ukrainians who overthrew a corrupt pro-Putin regime in 2014.

It is time to stand with the people of Ukraine, to defend truth, freedom and the right of people everywhere to self-determination.