Glen Cove rally backs Ukraine's long-term survival and end to war

Hundreds gathered Sunday in Glen Cove to demand an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine, but without terms of peace set by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center in Glen Cove sponsored the event in a banquet hall at the Polish National Home. Speaker after speaker took the stage to decry Putin's invasion three years ago Monday and remind the packed hall of the human toll taken ever since.

"This is genocide," Jolanta Zamecka, vice chair of the Holocaust Memorial & Tolerance Center in Glen Cove, told an audience that included community leaders, recent immigrants from Ukraine and elected officials.

Halyna Fenchenko, who emigrated from Ukraine in 2001, held a blue and yellow flag of her native country mounted on a towering flagpole while she listened to the speakers. 

Fenchenko, 53, teared up as she looked at a handful of signatures on the flag scribbled in marker. Her cousin, 51, and his fellow Ukrainian soldiers had signed the flag and mailed it to her on Long Island, she said.

"Putin, he is a terrorist," Fenchenko said. "He has to be punished for what he did to our country, our kids, our relatives."

More than 41,783 Ukrainian civilians, thousands of children among them, had been killed or wounded in the war by last month, according to the United Nations. About 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers and up to 200,000 Russians have been killed in action, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank.

Sunday's event came just ahead of the three-year anniversary of the war and amid an apparent shift in the United States position on the conflict, and doubts over President Donald Trump long-term commitment to backing Ukraine.

At a news conference last week, Trump said he had a "good chance" to end the war but falsely claimed Ukraine started it. He also called President Volodymyr Zelensky "a dictator," leading to criticism he was giving in to Putin and had fallen prey to Russian propaganda.

And initial negotiations to begin peace talks focused on a direct meeting between Trump and Putin with Zelensky excluded.

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) told Newsday at the Glen Cove gathering: "If we appease Putin for illegally invading a sovereign country, we’re doing the exact same thing as we did about Neville Chamberlain with Hitler in World War II. Russia is killing people, it's torturing people, it's raping people."

Suozzi also said Sunday that any talks aimed at ending the war must include Ukraine's president.

"It just can’t be Trump negotiating with Putin," he said. "Zelensky has got to be part of the deal and Russia cannot be rewarded for the fact that it invaded."

After nearly two hours of impassioned speakers pleading for peace and the survival of Ukraine, Viktoria Polusytok, 17, a student at Great Neck South High School took the stage.

Polusytok, who said she fled Ukraine with her family in the months after the war began on Feb. 24, 2022, said her best friend was killed there in September.

"My life before the war feels like a dream to me. It feels like it never happened," she said, bringing many in the crowd to tears. "I remember the first night when I heard explosions ... Children in Ukraine are forced to grow up too quickly, understanding things even some adults struggle to comprehend."