'We're ready to die for our children,' Kyiv mayor tells Toronto city council
Adam Carter | CBC News | Posted: April 7, 2022 4:21 PM | Last Updated: April 7, 2022
Warning: This story contains graphic images
Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko knows Ukraine is fighting a war at a disadvantage.
The besieged country doesn't have the power of Russia's weapons, tanks or planes.
But to hear Klitschko tell it when addressing Toronto city council Thursday morning, Ukraine has something Russia doesn't.
"We, Ukrainian, fighting and defending our cities, our families, our children.… We're ready to die for our children and for the future of our children," he said.
Klitschko and Deputy Mayor Mykola Povoroznyk spoke from Ukraine via video link at Toronto city hall, thanking councillors for Canada's support during the ongoing Russian invasion.
"Very thankful for everything what Canada doing right now for Ukraine," Klitschko said. "For your political support, for your economic support. To take refugees from Ukraine, to make humanitarian support for our country, and also it's very important right now for Ukraine to receive defensive weapons from our partner."
Russia's six-week-long invasion of Ukraine has forced over four million people to flee abroad, killed or injured thousands, left a quarter of the population homeless, turned cities into rubble and prompted a host of Western restrictions on Russian elites and the economy.
Klitschko told councillors that it's difficult to grasp the full scope of the horror inflicted on the region purely from photos and images from afar.
"It's genocide," he said.
Toronto and Kyiv are connected as part of Toronto's International Alliance Program, which is a "friendship city agreement" between the two cities established back in 1991, the city said in a news release.
According to the 2016 National Household Survey, there are over 72,000 Torontonians who identify as being of Ukrainian origin, the city says.
"We're not sister cities by accident," Mayor John Tory said, noting that Toronto and Kyiv are the largest cities in their respective countries, with populations around three million.
WATCH | Picking up the pieces in Ukraine:
But there is a "stark, tragic difference" between the two cities today, Tory said.
"Here, it is peaceful … there, you and your fellow residents … are under illegal, unjustifiable attack."
In an impassioned speech, Klitschko repeatedly stressed that countries must cut off all ties with Russia, as any trade at this point amounts to "bloody money.
"It's Ukrainian blood," he said.
Before a standing ovation from members of council and students from multiple Ukranian schools, Povoroznyk echoed those comments, and called for the strongest possible response to Russia's invasion, especially considering the hardship and deaths inflicted upon civilians.
"We will stand and we will win, because we have no other choice," he said through a translator.