Easter marches and Ukraine war: peace appeals to NATO, Kiev and Moscow

Negotiations instead of further arms deliveries to Ukraine – this is the core demand of the Easter March movement this year. Thousands of people took to the streets in more than 100 cities.

Russia’s war against Ukraine has given the Easter March movement a boost this year as well: Thousands of people demonstrated at more than 100 locations nationwide for peace between Moscow and Kiev, an end to arms aid for Ukraine and the renunciation of the build-up of the German armed forces.

Probably the largest Easter march with up to 2000 peace activists took place in Berlin. There the organizers warned of an escalation of the Ukraine war. Germany is partly to blame for this – through arms deliveries to Ukraine, which was invaded by Russia, “permanent war rhetoric and by fomenting enemy images”. Banners and placards read phrases like “Peace, heating, bread instead of weapons, war and death” and “NATO is the aggressor – peace with Russia”.

Call for a ban on arms deliveries to Ukraine

The former chairwoman of the council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, Margot Käßmann, also sees military support for Ukraine as a major obstacle to peace. At a rally in Hanover, in front of around 1,100 demonstrators, she called for the immediate stop of arms deliveries. “We don’t want the escalation to continue and more weapons to be delivered to the war zone,” said the former evangelical state bishop. Because of the military support for Kiev, the West makes itself “responsible for all the dead.”

At the same time, Käßmann called for negotiations to start immediately to end the conflict in Ukraine non-violently: “Then we’ll deliver combat bombers, warships, maybe even soldiers and we’ll be on the brink of a third world war, which will also be waged with nuclear weapons. This spiral of escalation must be stopped immediately be ended,” warned the theologian.

However, a negotiated solution to the Ukraine war currently seems a long way off. Russian President Vladimir Putin is still banking on conquering at least parts of Ukraine – despite the massive losses his army is suffering. For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy insists that Russia must withdraw from all occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. Military experts therefore do not expect the war to end quickly.

Left boss calls for solidarity with Kyiv

Left co-leader Martin Schirdewan meanwhile called for a clear positioning of the peace movement as a whole, despite the controversial discussion about the conflict. That means “international solidarity” with Ukraine, which has been attacked in violation of international law, and a “clear condemnation of the Russian war of aggression,” Schirdewan told dpa. At the same time, the left-wing politician criticized the federal government’s “unilateral focus” on arms deliveries and the training of Ukrainian soldiers.

Easter marches in numerous cities

Peace activists also took to the streets in other cities: in Bremen, according to the police, around 1,000 people moved from the “Peace Tunnel” to the market square, following a call from the Bremen Peace Forum. According to the Anti-War Forum Leipzig, 300 people took part in the Easter march in downtown Leipzig. Several hundred people also took to the streets in Munich, Cologne and Mainz.

The three-day Rhine-Ruhr Easter March, which will pass through numerous towns in the region until Easter Monday, began with an opening rally in Duisburg. It is one of the nationwide largest and most important activities of the peace movement at Easter.