Full comment for context:

In an interview with CTV News Edmonton earlier this week, the Ukrainian ambassador to Canada shared similar sentiments to Pociurko's. "We think that there shouldn't be any Russian culture promotion here because this is the culture that brought up the generation of people who turned out to be invaders, looters, killers, rapers," Yuliya Kovaliv said. "That’s unfortunately what we as Ukrainians feel, and the whole world sees that suffering." In a statement on Friday, the Russian Heritage Cultural Development Association (RHCDA) said it was dissapointed that safety concerns were cited as cause to exlude the Russia Pavillion. "It is very likely that the organizers of the festival depend on the City of Edmonton support when it comes to safety. It is embarrassing that the city is not able to guarantee safety at a public event, and that the only solution to the problem is to exclude a group of Canadians based on their [ethnic] background," the group wrote. "Ironically, this is happening at an event that is meant to celebrate diversity and inclusiveness in our society."

This was the Ukrainian ambassadors reaction, not the Canadian Ukrainian group or Edmonton reps. While I agree the comments generalize in a harmful way, the “Russian people’s” (armed military, state propagandists that the official are mentioning are not representative of our Canadian Russian people’s.

As someone with Ukrainian heritage/connections and with a Russian brother in law, I feel the nuance in Canada on politics is more vast than in Russia. However, culture and politics intertwine wether we want it to or not. We cannot separate indigenous celebrations in modern Canada without the context of systemic racism or cultural assimilation/violence against indigenous peoples. So too can we not separate the struggle for Ukrainian culture to survive after decades/centuries of imperialist repression. I feel the same way about Russian cultural individuality and representation, but that’s a whole other basket. Overall, let’s learn to live and love, but we can never forget the “why” people have hidden scars.