Building Bridges between Societies for New Ukraine

Main theses from the Russian-Ukrainian Conference of civil society activists in Brussels (European Parliament):

1. With its acts, Russia made an attack on the legal system of human rights – Ella Polyakova (Russia)

2. Statistics show that support of the European integration in Ukraine dropped by 10% since last year. It means that Europe does not encourage Ukrainians to become a full-right member of the European family – Oleksandr Solontay (Ukraine)

3. There are three main points on which Putin makes Russians believe they are doing the right thing by conducting war with Ukraine:

1) Dignity: “Crimea is ours! We have it back. This way we restored our dignity”;

2) Help “brothers”: “We will give our last shirt but we help our brothers to get rid of the neo-nazi”

3) It is the fight with Fascism: “Our grandfather did so in the 40s, so it is our mission to continue their cause” – Svetlana Gannushkina (Russia). Actually there are no counterarguments to these points. It is all about belief. That is why Putin’s propaganda is winning in Russia.

4. There is a new Russian project “Ukraine with your own eyes”: the Russian activists organize a trip of Russians to Ukraine so that they can see everything themselves.