Effigy likening Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler erected outside Russian embassy

Civil society NGO Repubblika erected an effigy likening Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler in a protest on Tuesday. 

The demonstration, attended by Ukrainian nationals living in Malta, was held on Tuesday evening outside the Russian embassy in Swieqi. 

Attendees held up banners calling for an end to the conflict in the Eastern European country. 

(Photo: James Bianchi/MediaToday)

“We gather here again to mourn the victims of the aggression ordered by Vladimir Putin, the children, women and men killed by the fire that has rained on them, the bullets and the bombs thrown at them as they tried to escape for their lives,” Repubblika President Robert Aquilina said in a speech delivered at the protest. 

He said every democracy in the world is a threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin, especially countries close to him. 

(Photo: James Bianchi/MediaToday)

“The people of Ukraine have shown Vladimir Putin that heroes are not moulded out of the congealed blood of other people they kill. The people of Ukraine have shown Vladimir Putin that kleptocrats and criminals, billionaires who have robbed their own countries, make for bad political leaders,” he said. 

(Photo: James Bianchi/MediaToday)

Aquilina said people must stand together with Ukraine, and the people of Russia, “a who are also victims of Vladimir Putin’s blind and violent ambition.”

“We must uphold democracy wherever it still stands, even if battered and bruised by the backsliding of little Putins around the world who haven’t gone quite as mad, but would if they could,” Aquilina told those present.