MOSCOW, June 10 (RIA Novosti) - Refugees from eastern Ukraine, who were provided shelter in Dmitriadovsky children’s summer camp based in southern Russia’s Rostov region, urged Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to stop the violence in the region in a five-minute video plea published on Youtube.
In the video, women and children forced to leave their homes due to the military operation in eastern Ukraine, are holding posters with #DontKillUs written on them, asking the newly elected president to let them live and to stop killing their relatives in Slaviansk and Luhansk.
The refugees used the video message to thank Russia for providing them with shelter and to express concerns for their relatives, who remain in the warzone, asking Poroshenko to withdraw Ukrainian military forces from the area.
Refugee Valerya from Slaviansk, whose relatives remain in the area of military operation, begged Poroshenko to withdraw his army, saying “we want to live, please don’t kill us.”
Over the past few days the situation in the region has sharply deteriorated, triggering a flow of refugees pouring in from Ukraine to the neighboring Rostov region in Russia.
According to the regional government, thousands of Ukrainians have entered the Rostov region.
“I came here from Slaviansk with my two children. My husband, brother and parents stayed in Slaviansk. We are ordinary people and not what they were calling us all these months. First we were mercenaries of Donetsk region and then we became separatists and later even terrorists. We are ordinary people. We left our relatives in Slaviansk and we beg not to kill them,” a 30-year-old refugee, Olga, said in the video plea.
The Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics declared themselves independent states following the May 11 referendum and soon started to form governments and law enforcement agencies.
Kiev has refused to recognize the legitimacy of any of these decisions and is continuing military operations that were launched in mid-April against the independence supporters in the regions.
Moscow has repeatedly condemned Kiev authorities for what it calls "a punitive operation" and stressed the need for the de-escalation of the Ukrainian crisis.
