Ukraine’s Greek communities have been embroiled in war since 2014, when separatists seized part of the Donbas region. Eight years later, no one was prepared for the ferocity of the assault Russia unleashed on Ukraine.
100,000 citizens of Greek origin lived in Mariupol and the surrounding villages, 5,000 in Odessa, and a few thousand more scattered throughout the country. The Greeks have been present in the region without interruption for 27 centuries. In 2022, the ferocity of Russia’s invasion has devastating consequences for the Greek communities of Ukraine. Mariupol, the city of the Virgin Mary, has almost been wiped off the map. Some of the Greeks in the area have managed to leave. A number have moved elsewhere within Ukraine. Others have fled to European countries, with a thousand or so washing up in Greece.
The short film made by ELIAMEP, with the support of the Embassy of Canada in Greece, on the sad first anniversary of Russia’s invasion, records the long history of the Greek communities in the Ukraine and the tragic consequences the war has brought upon them.