View allAll Photos Tagged NoToWar
An abstract of the Yellowstone River in Yellowstone National Park. The river is in red for the blood of the fallen. As we all know. May God be with you. #Ukraine #IStandWithUkraine #Peace #LetPeacePrevail #NoToWar
Buttercup / Gold-Hahnenfuß
(Ranunculus auricomus agg.)
taken almost two years ago on a hike in Black Forest - a lovely place with blossoming trees and lush meadows with buttercups and common brooms - how time flies and times have changed !
[ playing around a bit with textures again; it's so called "organic dirt" in Analog Efex, but it reminds me of teardrops and I thought it was fitting these dire times. I changed the background hues, too, from some sort of bottle-green to more blue-ish hues ]
♥ Love & Peace ! ♥
I've been away from Flickr for a while as it's 'that time of year' at work and I also hadn't really used the camera for a while. But the terrible happenings over the last week or so in Ukraine, combined with rising gas and electricity prices, never-ending Winter and the misery of Covid uncertainty still hanging around, made me want to get the camera out and create something nice. Spring flowers always make me feel hopeful, even when the world is in such a mess.
Thinking today of our fellow humans in Ukraine. Utterly heartbreaking that this situation can still occur in 2022.
a backlit slice of lemon floating (or rather bobbing) in a glass filled with sparkling water
♥ Love & Peace ! ♥
P.S.: I do love lemons by the way
(we usually never run out of them ; )
(Ojibwe proverb)
Traditionally, Tibetian prayer flags are used to promote peace, compassion, strength, and wisdom. The Tibetans believe the prayers and mantras on the prayer flags will be blown by the wind to spread the good will and compassion into all pervading space and bring benefit to all touched by the wind ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_flag
... this flag is (hopefully still) located in the center of my hometown, blowing in the wind ... (haven't been there for ages; taken in March 2020)
Love & Peace !
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I won't have much time for Flickr in the coming days (probably at least for two weeks); so I might be off and on for some time.
Take care, dear Flickr friends !
Oil on water / small bubbles ... the macro lens was kinda kissing the oil bubbles !
Doesn't it look like the person (err, bubble, I mean) on the right side is blushing ... always makes me smile ; ))
People, make love not war ! 🌈
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
... der Kuss ...
Öl auf Wasser ... ganz nach dran - das Objektiv hat die Blasen quasi geküsst ; ))
Sieht es nicht so aus, als würde die Person rechts (äh, der Öltropfen, meine ich) heftig erröten ... bringt mich immer zum Grinsen ; ))
Leute, macht Liebe statt Krieg ! 🌈
some short moments of carefree spring bliss this evening when riding home with my bike ... urban sunset and spring blossoms
... yes, I know, very cliché ... that's why I added some texture, grain and vignette : )
I need moments like this to stay sane in these dark and troubling times!
♥ Love and Peace ! ♥
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I noticed that this image is one of my most viewed without being Explored.
So whoever is using this image out there in the WWW: you didn't ask for my permission; thus you are violating my copyright
"The world that I should wish to see would be one freed from the virulence of group hostilities and capable of realizing that happiness for all is to be derived rather from co-operation than from strife."
~ Bertrand Russell
Display of flags at the Federal Constitutional Court, Federal Republic of Germany on February 27th, 2022
Stop this War against freedom, indepedency and democracy !
My thoughts are with the Ukrainian people 💙💛
[Comments disabled - sad and lost for words]
* * * * * * * * * * *
Beflaggung des Bundesverfassungsgerichts der Bundesrepublik Deutschland am 27.02.2022
...ich bin traurig und sprachlos ...
Selfie Saturday. This is not a political statement. Also this won’t be staying on my gallery permanently.
Peace and love to All
P E A C E T I M E
📍 Kyiv 🇺🇦☮️
Saddening news of the Russian aggression towards Ukraine has had me revisiting my previously unedited & unposted photographic archive from my visit to Kyiv back in 2019...
Here you can see people of the city and tourists living in peace amongst a small street market.
The destruction brought upon this peaceful nation will change the lives of it's citizens and it's landscape for years to come. I just hope the courageous Ukrainian army can repel the invasion and rebuild.
Canon 6D MkII | 24-105mm lens at 55mm | ƒ/9 | 1/100 sec | ISO 100 | Handheld | No filters | Lightroom & Photoshop | Taken at Kyiv on 10-05-2019
Copyright Andrew Hocking 2022
File: 2022002-0036
Cathedral Plaza, at the south end of High Street, Worcester, Worcestershire, England, United Kingdom. Sunday 6th March 2022, at around 2pm to 4pm.
About the photograph.
Those shots were in colour, I converted those two into black and white.
This photograph shows a man taking his turn to speak of his option on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He is seen standing next to the Edward Elgar statue, at the Cathedral Plaza, the direction of the photograph is facing north.
The last time I attended a protest to try to do some photojournalism kind of photography, was back in 1987-89 during my college days.
Since then, been trying to get a job in photography or graphic design. Got married, started having kids, then got a divorce and became a very busy single parent and full-time carer. Now that my kids are older and left home, I’m free and independent, so I decided to try to get back into doing photography. I need to refresh my skills anyway.
In the first week of March, 2022, I heard that there was a planned protest in Worcester which is the nearest city, so the night before, I charged up my Nikon’s batteries, formatted the memory cards to make sure I have plenty of storage space left for more photos, and made sure my photography kit bag is ready.
On the afternoon of Sunday, I drove to Worcester, parked my car at the car park, and walked over to the Cathedral Plaza, which is where the protests were due to start. At that time (March 2022), the Knife Angel, a 27 feet tall sculpture made out of knives seized by the police, was on display.
As the 2pm start was approaching, more and more people arrived there, I would say there was around about between 50 to 75 people, or something like that. The protest was really more like a Speaker’s Corner kind of protest, with many people just standing around, rather than a march. At least 4 or 5 different guys took turns to speak out their statements, while some people held up their placards. There wasn’t much of a protest, but then again, it is because Worcester is a small city compared to other major cities where protests were taking part on massive scale.
I tried my best to do a photo-journalism kind of photography, I went around the crowd and took as many photos as I could. Those are just the few good photos I could find out of the approximately 400 photos I managed to take.
About the overall subject.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine started on the 24th of February 2022, and in a short space of time, many Europeans, Americans, mostly and mainly anyone of “Western” lifestyle, people living in free countries, with freedom of speech, of choice, of votes, many of them started taking to streets to protest against the Russian invasion.
There were so many signs in various languages, often advising that Russia should leave Ukraine, stop the war, Putin being a war criminal, and so on.
This protest that I attended to take the photos, was organised by the Worcester Trades Union Council, and was listed on the Stop the War Coalition website, under the No to War in Ukraine protests section. This was just one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of protests happening all around the world on Sunday 6th March, in respond to President Putin‘s decision to attack Ukraine.
.
You are welcome to comment for yourself with your words. BUT DO NOT use the Comment Box as adverting billboard for copy-and-paste Canned Comments, with pre-prepared text and oversized pic of group logo. They are clickable spam encouraging people to visit the groups rather than saying something about our photographs and therefore will be deleted.
A single shot from today's demonstration in support of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.
The woman with the white sign is Russian and the sign say: "I am ashamed to be Russian."
Stand With Ukraine, Toronto, 6 March, 2022
#Flickr21Challenge #community #day20
#MrPutinStopThisWar #NoToWar #PoutineAssassin #StandWithUkraine #StopPutin #StopTheWar #WorldForUkraine #putingofuckyourself #trumpgofuckyourself
The most respected psychiatrists and sociologists in the world agree on one thing: Trump and Putin are two psychopaths who care nothing about the lives of human beings.
"Plava" Barracks – Provincial Command of the Carabinieri | Massa (Tuscany)
A geometric shot of the main facade of the historic "Plava" Barracks in Massa (MS), originally established as a Military District and currently serving as the headquarters of the Provincial Command of the Carabinieri.
This image invites a profound reflection on the concept of institutional presence and the cultural divide between our European identity and the one across the Atlantic.
The value of sobriety and memory:
Looking at the facade, what stands out is a sober, measured, and ethical elegance. The symmetrical lines and architectural details do not chase glitz or pomp; instead, they convey a sense of moral duty and deep roots within the local community. There is no room here for the tacky showmanship or muscular ostentation typical of American military aesthetics, where architectural gigantism and flags obsessively waved everywhere serve to justify a geopolitical ideology based on constant interventions all over the globe.
Here, the presence of symbols is restrained and solemn: the institutional flags are discreetly integrated above the entrance, and the word "PLAVA" is not a warmongering cry. Rather, it is a quiet, respectful tribute to the memory of the fallen and the historical sacrifices of World War I along the Isonzo River. It is a monumental yet integrated structure within the urban fabric—one that speaks of defense, community, and moral rigor, while flatly rejecting any form of exhibitionism.
Location: Via XXVII Aprile, Massa, Tuscany, Italy
Arcobaleno alto,
l’albero attende quieto—
pace dopo il vento.
Quando ci sono persone che mettono i proprio ego ed i propri personali interessi davanti alla morte e alla sofferenza di milioni di persone, non posso che dispiacermene profondamente e sperare che qualcuno rinsavisca. Non amo parlare di politica, specialmente di quella americana, ma qui si passa dalla tragedia alla farsa tragicomica e nessuno pensa più a gente che vive da anni in mezzo alle macerie, alle bombe, alle malattie, alla miseria, e che muore ogni giorno mentre qualcuno gioca con i soldatini (altrui)
#Pace #Peace #NoWar #StopWar #Arcobaleno #Rainbow #Hope #Speranza #NatureLover #Natura #Tramonto #SkyLovers #Serenity #NoToWar #LoveNotWar #Calma #Harmony #Resilienza #BeautyOfNature #ForABetterWorld
"The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to the question, and by seeking we may come upon the truth." Pierre Abelard
File: 2022002-0242
Cathedral Plaza, at the south end of High Street, Worcester, Worcestershire, England, United Kingdom. Sunday 6th March 2022, at around 2pm to 4pm.
About this photograph.
The last time I attended a protest to try to do some photojournalism kind of photography, was back in 1987-89 during my college days. (I will upload a few of those photographs in near future when I’ve scanned and post-processed the old 35mm photographs.)
Since then, been trying to get a job in photography or graphic design. Got married, started having kids, then got a divorce and became a very busy single parent and full-time carer. Now that my kids are older and left home, I’m free and independent, so I decided to try to get back into doing photography. I need to refresh my skills anyway.
I heard that there was a planned protest in Worcester which is the nearest city, so the night before, I charged up my Nikon’s batteries, formatted the memory cards to make sure I have plenty of storage space left for more photos, and checked whatever else I needed.
On Sunday afternoon, I drove to Worcester, parked my car at the car park, and walked over to the Cathedral Plaza, which is where the protests were due to start. At that time (March 2022), the Knife Angel, a 27 feet tall sculpture made out of knives seized by the police, was on display.
As the 2pm start was approaching, more and more people arrived there, I would say there was around about between 50 to 75 people, or something like that.
The protest was really more like a Speaker’s Corner kind of protest, with many people just standing around, rather than a march. At least 4 or 5 different guys took turns to speak out their statements, while some people held up their placards. There wasn’t much of a protest, but then again, it is because Worcester is a small city compared to other major cities where protests were taking part on massive scale.
I tried my best to do a photo-journalism kind of photography, I went around the crowd and took as many photos as I could. Those are just the few good photos I could find out of the 400 photos I managed to take.
About the overall subject.
The Stop the War Coalition website had a list of No to War in Ukraine protests. In the listing, I found a planned protest to be held in Worcester, and it was organised by the Worcester Trades Union Council.
This was just one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of protests happening all around the world on Sunday 6th March, in respond to President Putin of Russia, making a decision to attack Ukraine.
.
NOTICE: The Comment Box is NOT an adverting space for Canned Comments, copy-and-paste-comment-codes. They are spam and therefore will be deleted. You are free to comment for yourself with your own words, not comment on behalf of the group with their codes.
#yellowandblue may evoke a landscape - for example, the colors of #sunlight and body of #water - yet its glowing fields of color seem to float on canvas, suggesting a luminous void of abstraction. Through this play of color and space #Rothko sought an emotional and spiritual exchange with the viewer. “I’m interested in expressing only basic human emotions - tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on.” he said. “The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them”.
Wiki:
Mark Rothko was born in Daugavpils, Latvia (then in the Russian Empire). His father, Jacob (Yakov) Rothkowitz, was a pharmacist and intellectual who initially provided his children with a secular and political, rather than religious, upbringing. According to Rothko, his Marxist father was "violently anti-religious".[1] In an environment where Jews were often blamed for many of the evils that befell Russia, Rothko's early childhood was plagued by fear.
Mass destruction, suffering older people, NICU & pediatric cancer hospital (with children after chemo) sheltering in the basements.
Stop War
Dundalk stands with Ukraine
Heartbreaking stories at today's rally for Ukraine as speakers spoke of their fears for their families back home and appealed for Western governments for help to save their country.
When I tried to tag this as 'Ireland Stands with Ukraine' and 'Stop War', they were automatically removed with message that they were invalid tags. Seriously.
On Saturday 25 February 2023, several thousand Peace Now demonstrators marched through central London to demand negotiations to bring about a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine war.
PEACE TALKS NOW.
Almost all the protesters agreed that their main demand was for a greater effort to end the horrific conflict in Ukraine, in which possibly as many as 200,000 may have already died and with the risk of escalation threatening the end of all human life on earth.
WASHINGTON AND LONDON BLOCKED TALKS IN 2022
The evidence suggests that the United States and United Kingdom blocked Ukraine from carrying through with its proposed basis for a peace deal with Russia during negotiations in March-April 2022, with the Ukrainian newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda, citing sources close to Zelensky, claiming that Boris Johnson, on his visit to Kiev on 9 April, personally lobbied the Ukrainian president to abandon peace talks and continue the conflict.
peacenews.info/node/10287/liz-truss-helped-derail-chances...
The former Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, also claimed that Washington blocked his attempts to negotiate a peace deal between Kiev and Moscow.
thegrayzone.com/2023/02/06/israeli-bennett-us-russia-ukra...
A VARIETY OF VIEWS ON SENDING ARMS
Protesters had a greater variety of views on whether the West should send any arms to Ukraine at all, with many opposing any supply of arms that they believe will only prolong the conflict and suffering and risk further escalation, while others argued that sending some arms was morally justifiable to help Ukraine, but that the supply should be carefully calibrated so as not to make a wider and even more catastrophic world war more likely.
JEREMY CORBYN'S SPEECH
The former British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, appearing unexpectedly in the middle of the demonstration as people were gathering for the march, gave an unscheduled speech, declaring that
'if all the protagonists in this conflict can come together to discuss the supply of grain to the world, and come to an agreement by which ships carrying the grain from Ukraine and Russia can go to feed other people in other parts of the world; if the US is capable of contacting Russia to say that president Biden is visiting Kiev, then it is obviously possible they could come together for serious talks and serious negotiations to stop the fighting, stop the killing, stop the conflict, and bring about peace and justice."
WHY THE WEST NEEDS TO SUPPORT AND NOT BLOCK PEACE NEGOTIATIONS
1. Regardless of one's opinions on the rights and wrongs of this conflict, most people will agree on their shock at it's human cost. A war which has already claimed at least 100,000 lives, possibly over 200,000, including more than 8,000 civilians.
abcnews.go.com/International/russia-ukraine-war-tens-thou...
Its continuation also threatens global food supplies and energy prices, plunging thousands into food and fuel poverty across Europe and leading to widespread food shortages and hunger across Africa and parts of Asia.
2. Every day the war continues, and as NATO supplies of ever more powerful weaponry continue to increase, the risk of the war escalating into a terminal nuclear conflict continues to grow.
Putin and much of the Russian military establishment will do almost anything to prevent a Ukrainian victory, especially one that might see Crimea, of huge strategic importance and with a clear majority Russian population, be returned to Ukraine. Many strategic analysts and Russia specialists believe that Moscow would be willing to consider using at least tactical nuclear weapons, and that this could quickly escalate into global conflict.
The ongoing conflict is also jeopardising all the remaining arms control agreements which prevent another nuclear arms race, so that even if Ukraine is victorious, we risk entering a new cold war which is likely to end, soon rather than later, in a nuclear conflict that will terminate all organised human life on earth.
3. The Ukraine War has led to a huge increase in the consumption of fossil fuels, and the reversal of key policies in the fight against climate change. It also hinders crucial cooperation between Russia and the West on this urgent issue, on which the future of all human life on earth so heavily depends, particularly with regards measures to curb emissions, as well as cooperation between Russian and Western scientists. Russia occupies a large part of the arctic, where research findings are vital for our understanding of how rapidly climate change is occurring.
4. We have to acknowledge that some of the West's recently declared war aims are highly questionable such as returning Crimea to Ukraine. Not only are the Russians unlikely to ever consider entering peace negotiations over its return, but over 60% of the population is Russian according to the last 2001 Ukrainian census and only 24% ( about 1 in 4) are Ukrainian.
So it will be difficult to incorporate the territory back into Ukraine without at least some sort of referendum on Crimea's status. It also has to be acknowledged that the millions of Russians who live within Ukraine have for years faced harsh discrimination with severe restrictions on the importation of books in the Russian language since 2017 (Russian books had previously accounted for 60% of all titles), restrictions on the use of Russian language in schools and Russophobic attacks in the streets.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Ukraine
The Russians in the Donbass area have also suffered from years of shelling during a prolonged war Ukrainian forces waged against them, with a total death toll up to December 2021 (including both Ukrainian and insurgent forces) of over 14,000, including over 3,000 civilians killed. Yes, there was an inflow of Russian arms which also stoked the conflict, but many Russians viewed this as legitimate support for a population which was under attack from the Ukrainian army.
ukraine.un.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/Conflict-relat...
5. Finally, whatever one's views on the Ukrainian conflict, the evidence suggests that Western strategy is failing. Russian forces continue to gain ground in Ukraine on a daily basis, despite an enormous inflow of NATO arms. Russian industry is able to be fully mobilised on a war footing in a way that the West, with its just in time corporate controlled arms industry, can't compete with.
NATO has already acknowledged that by the summer of this year, Ukraine is likely to run out of artillery shells. What is brutally termed the "burn rate" of NATO supplied military equipment (and indeed of Ukrainian young men) is far higher than its replenishment rate. At the same time, despite all the sanctions the Russian economy is predicted to grow faster this year than either Germany or the United Kingdom.
www.grid.news/story/global/2023/02/01/russias-economy-is-...
The ruble has actually gained slightly in strength against the US dollar, relative to its value a year ago in February 2022,
www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=RUB&to=USD
and Russian reserves remain impressively high. Much of the world, including China, India, South Africa and Brazil, remain more than willing to retain good relations with Russia and import its oil and other key commodities.
Western strategy is failing to weaken Russia but the war strengthens the position of the nationalists within Russia, and gives the Russian government a pretext to clampdown on dissent. It also pushes Russia ever closer to China, while accelerating Europe's relative economic decline. So whatever one's moral view on the conflict, the lack of any coherent strategy to end this conflict and the West's refusal even to consider peace negotiations appears to be a catastrophic mistake.
On the 27th of February, close to 100,000 people gathered against the Russian aggressive assault in Ukraine.
This photo was taken about a week later and show a small crowd of about 100 people gathered in support of Russia and Puttin's invasion of Ukraine.
File: 2022002-0193
Cathedral Plaza, at the south end of High Street, Worcester, Worcestershire, England, United Kingdom. Sunday 6th March 2022, at around 2pm to 4pm.
About this photograph.
The last time I attended a protest to try to do some photojournalism kind of photography, was back in 1987-89 during my college days. (I will upload a few of those photographs in near future when I’ve scanned and post-processed the old 35mm photographs.)
Since then, been trying to get a job in photography or graphic design. Got married, started having kids, then got a divorce and became a very busy single parent and full-time carer. Now that my kids are older and left home, I’m free and independent, so I decided to try to get back into doing photography. I need to refresh my skills anyway.
I heard that there was a planned protest in Worcester which is the nearest city, so the night before, I charged up my Nikon’s batteries, formatted the memory cards to make sure I have plenty of storage space left for more photos, and checked whatever else I needed.
On Sunday afternoon, I drove to Worcester, parked my car at the car park, and walked over to the Cathedral Plaza, which is where the protests were due to start. At that time (March 2022), the Knife Angel, a 27 feet tall sculpture made out of knives seized by the police, was on display.
As the 2pm start was approaching, more and more people arrived there, I would say there was around about between 50 to 75 people, or something like that.
The protest was really more like a Speaker’s Corner kind of protest, with many people just standing around, rather than a march. At least 4 or 5 different guys took turns to speak out their statements, while some people held up their placards. There wasn’t much of a protest, but then again, it is because Worcester is a small city compared to other major cities where protests were taking part on massive scale.
I tried my best to do a photo-journalism kind of photography, I went around the crowd and took as many photos as I could. Those are just the few good photos I could find out of the 400 photos I managed to take.
About the overall subject.
The Stop the War Coalition website had a list of No to War in Ukraine protests. In the listing, I found a planned protest to be held in Worcester, and it was organised by the Worcester Trades Union Council.
This was just one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of protests happening all around the world on Sunday 6th March, in respond to President Putin of Russia, making a decision to attack Ukraine.
.
NOTICE: The Comment Box is NOT an adverting space for Canned Comments, copy-and-paste-comment-codes. They are spam and therefore will be deleted. You are free to comment for yourself with your own words, not comment on behalf of the group with their codes.
Hallo ihr da Oben mit den Händen an den Schalthebeln und Knöpfen der Macht: Krieg ist keine Lösung !
#NoToWar
Hello you up there with your hands on the levers and buttons of power: War is no solution!
Stand With Ukraine, Toronto, 6 March, 2022
#MrPutinStopThisWar #NoToWar #PoutineAssassin #StandWithUkraine #StopPutin #StopTheWar #WorldForUkraine
Putin idy na khuy / Putin, go fuck yourself
Street art by @nick_sweetman @mr_tensoe2 @twice.born @workingspy3000
#putinidynakhuy #putingofuckyourself #mrputinstopthiswar #stopthewar #stopputin #notowar #standwithukraine
File: 2022002-0233
Cathedral Plaza, at the south end of High Street, Worcester, Worcestershire, England, United Kingdom. Sunday 6th March 2022, at around 2pm to 4pm.
About the photograph.
This photo shows a guy taking his turn to speak out his option of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, while a group of people are listening.
Notice the two people at the far left side of the photo, one of them holding a placard saying ”Tyrants always fail” and the other person with a Ukraine flag on shoulders. There is a closer photo of them in my Photostream.
The last time I attended a protest to try to do some photojournalism kind of photography, was back in 1987-89 during my college days.
Since then, been trying to get a job in photography or graphic design. Got married, started having kids, then got a divorce and became a very busy single parent and full-time carer. Now that my kids are older and left home, I’m free and independent, so I decided to try to get back into doing photography. I need to refresh my skills anyway.
In the first week of March, 2022, I heard that there was a planned protest in Worcester which is the nearest city, so the night before, I charged up my Nikon’s batteries, formatted the memory cards to make sure I have plenty of storage space left for more photos, and made sure my photography kit bag is ready.
On the afternoon of Sunday, I drove to Worcester, parked my car at the car park, and walked over to the Cathedral Plaza, which is where the protests were due to start. At that time (March 2022), the Knife Angel, a 27 feet tall sculpture made out of knives seized by the police, was on display.
As the 2pm start was approaching, more and more people arrived there, I would say there was around about between 50 to 75 people, or something like that. The protest was really more like a Speaker’s Corner kind of protest, with many people just standing around, rather than a march. At least 4 or 5 different guys took turns to speak out their statements, while some people held up their placards. There wasn’t much of a protest, but then again, it is because Worcester is a small city compared to other major cities where protests were taking part on massive scale.
I tried my best to do a photo-journalism kind of photography, I went around the crowd and took as many photos as I could. Those are just the few good photos I could find out of the approximately 400 photos I managed to take.
About the overall subject.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine started on the 24th of February 2022, and in a short space of time, many Europeans, Americans, mostly and mainly anyone of “Western” lifestyle, people living in free countries, with freedom of speech, of choice, of votes, many of them started taking to streets to protest against the Russian invasion.
There were so many signs in various languages, often advising that Russia should leave Ukraine, stop the war, Putin being a war criminal, and so on.
This protest that I attended to take the photos, was organised by the Worcester Trades Union Council, and was listed on the Stop the War Coalition website, under the No to War in Ukraine protests section. This was just one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of protests happening all around the world on Sunday 6th March, in respond to President Putin‘s decision to attack Ukraine.
.
You are welcome to comment for yourself with your words. BUT DO NOT use the Comment Box as adverting billboard for copy-and-paste Canned Comments, with pre-prepared text and oversized pic of group logo. They are clickable spam encouraging people to visit the groups rather than saying something about our photographs and therefore will be deleted.
"Billion-dollar missiles, priceless human lives."
Money buys the arsenal, but no budget can rebuild a broken home.
#HumanCostOfWar
#PeaceOverProfits
#Geopolitics
#NoToWar
#ValueLifeNotWar
On Saturday 25 February 2023, several thousand Peace Now demonstrators gathered in London to demand negotiations to bring about a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine war.
PEACE TALKS NOW.
Almost all the protesters agreed that their main demand was for a greater effort to end the horrific conflict in Ukraine, in which possibly as many as 200,000 may have already died and with the risk of escalation threatening the end of all human life on earth.
WASHINGTON AND LONDON BLOCKED TALKS IN 2022
The evidence suggests that the United States and United Kingdom blocked Ukraine from carrying through with its proposed basis for a peace deal with Russia during negotiations in March-April 2022, with the Ukrainian newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda, citing sources close to Zelensky, claiming that Boris Johnson, on his visit to Kiev on 9 April, personally lobbied the Ukrainian president to abandon peace talks and continue the conflict.
peacenews.info/node/10287/liz-truss-helped-derail-chances...
The former Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, also claimed that Washington blocked his attempts to negotiate a peace deal between Kiev and Moscow.
thegrayzone.com/2023/02/06/israeli-bennett-us-russia-ukra...
A VARIETY OF VIEWS ON SENDING ARMS
Protesters had a greater variety of views on whether the West should send any arms to Ukraine at all, with many opposing any supply of arms that they believe will only prolong the conflict and suffering and risk further escalation, while others argued that sending some arms was morally justifiable to help Ukraine, but that the supply should be carefully calibrated so as not to make a wider and even more catastrophic world war more likely.
JEREMY CORBYN'S SPEECH
Jeremy Corbyn, as he concluded his brief speech, declared that 'if all the protagonists in this conflict can come together to discuss the supply of grain to the world, and come to an agreement by which ships carrying the grain from Ukraine and Russia can go to feed other people in other parts of the world; if the US is capable of contacting Russia to say that president Biden is visiting Kiev, then it is obviously possible they could come together for serious talks and serious negotiations to stop the fighting, stop the killing, stop the conflict, and bring about peace and justice."
WHY THE WEST NEEDS TO SUPPORT AND NOT BLOCK PEACE NEGOTIATIONS
1. Regardless of one's opinions on the rights and wrongs of this conflict, it has already claimed at least 100,000 lives, possibly over 200,000, including more than 8,000 civilians
abcnews.go.com/International/russia-ukraine-war-tens-thou...
Its continuation also threatens global food supplies and energy prices, plunging thousands into food and fuel poverty across Europe and leading to widespread food shortages and hunger across Africa and parts of Asia.
2. Every day the war continues, and as NATO supplies of ever more powerful weaponry continue to increase, the risk of the war escalating into a terminal nuclear conflict continues to grow. Putin and much of the Russian military establishment will do almost anything to prevent a Ukrainian victory, especially one that might see Crimea, of huge strategic importance and with a clear majority Russian population, be returned to Ukraine. Many strategic analysts and Russia specialists believe that Moscow would be willing to consider using at least tactical nuclear weapons, and that this could quickly escalate into global conflict. The ongoing conflict is also jeopardising all the remaining arms control agreements which prevent another nuclear arms race, so that even if Ukraine is victorious, we risk entering a new cold war which is likely to end, soon rather than later, in a nuclear conflict that will terminate all organised human life on earth.
3. The Ukraine War has led to a huge increase in the consumption of fossil fuels, and the reversal of key policies in the fight against climate change. It also hinders crucial cooperation between Russia and the West on this urgent issue with regards measures to curb emissions, as well as cooperation between Russian and Western scientists, particularly as Russia occupies a large part of the arctic, where research findings are vital for our understanding of how rapidly climate change is occuring.
4. We have to acknowledge that some of the West's recently declared war aims are highly questionable such as returning Crimea to Ukraine. Not only are the Russians unlikely to ever consider entering peace negotiations over its return, but over 60% of the population is Russian according to the last 2001 Ukrainian census and only 24% ( about 1 in 4) are Ukrainian. So it will be difficult to incorporate the territory back into Ukraine without at least some sort of referendum on Crimea's status. It also has to be acknowledged that the millions of Russians who live within Ukraine have for years faced harsh discrimination with severe restrictions on the importation of books in the Russian language since 2017 (Russian books had previously accounted for 60% of all titles), restrictions on the use of Russian language in schools and Russophobic attacks in the streets.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Ukraine
The Russians in the Donbass area have also suffered from years of shelling during a prolonged war Ukrainian forces waged against them, with a total death toll up to December 2021 (including both Ukrainian and insurgent forces) of over 14,000, including over 3,000 civilians killed. Yes, there was an inflow of Russian arms which also stoked the conflict, but many Russians viewed this as legitimate support for a population which was under attack from the Ukrainian army.
ukraine.un.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/Conflict-relat...
5. Finally, whatever one's views on the Ukrainian conflict, the evidence suggests that Western strategy is failing. Russian forces continue to gain ground in Ukraine on a daily basis, despite an enormous inflow of NATO arms. Russian industry is able to be fully mobilised on a war footing in a way that the West, with its just in time corporate controlled arms industry, can't compete with. NATO has already acknowledged that by the summer of this year, Ukraine is likely to run out of artillery shells. What is brutally termed the "burn rate" of NATO supplied military equipment (and indeed of Ukrainian young men) is far higher than its replenishment rate. At the same time, despite all the sanctions the Russian economy is predicted to grow faster this year than either Germany or the United Kingdom.
www.grid.news/story/global/2023/02/01/russias-economy-is-...
The ruble has actually gained slightly in strength against the US dollar, relative to its value a year ago in February 2022,
www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=RUB&to=USD
and Russian reserves remain impressively high. Much of the world, including China, India, South Africa and Brazil, remain more than willing to retain good relations with Russia and import its oil and other key commodities. Western strategy is failing to weaken Russia but the war strengthens the position of the nationalists within Russia, and gives the Russian government a pretext to clampdown on dissent. It also pushes Russia ever closer to China, while accelerating Europe's relative economic decline. So whatever one's moral view on the conflict, the lack of any coherent strategy to end this conflict and the West's refusal even to consider peace negotiations appears to be a catastrophic mistake.
On Saturday 25 February 2023, Jeremy Corbyn suddenly appeared amid a Peace Now demonstration, and gave an unscheduled speech to hundreds of anti-war demonstrators at the junction of Riding House Street and Langham Place in central London.
This photo was taken at the very last moment as he concluded, demanding the United States and the United Kingdom at least consider the possibility of a peaceful resolution to the conflict through negotiation.
PEACE TALKS NOW.
Almost all the protesters agreed that their main demand was for a greater effort to end the horrific conflict in Ukraine, in which possibly as many as 200,000 may have already died and with the risk of escalation threatening the end of all human life on earth.
WASHINGTON AND LONDON BLOCKED TALKS IN 2022
The evidence suggests that the United States and United Kingdom blocked Ukraine from carrying through with its proposed basis for a peace deal with Russia during negotiations in March-April 2022, with the Ukrainian newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda, citing sources close to Zelensky, claiming that Boris Johnson, on his visit to Kiev on 9 April, personally lobbied the Ukrainian president to abandon peace talks and continue the conflict.
peacenews.info/node/10287/liz-truss-helped-derail-chances...
The former Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, also claimed that Washington blocked his attempts to negotiate a peace deal between Kiev and Moscow.
thegrayzone.com/2023/02/06/israeli-bennett-us-russia-ukra...
A VARIETY OF VIEWS ON SENDING ARMS
Protesters had a greater variety of views on whether the West should send any arms to Ukraine at all, with many opposing any supply of arms that they believe will only prolong the conflict and suffering and risk further escalation, while others argued that sending some arms was morally justifiable to help Ukraine, but that the supply should be carefully calibrated so as not to make a wider and even more catastrophic world war more likely.
JEREMY CORBYN'S SPEECH
Jeremy Corbyn, as he concluded his brief speech, declared that 'if all the protagonists in this conflict can come together to discuss the supply of grain to the world, and come to an agreement by which ships carrying the grain from Ukraine and Russia can go to feed other people in other parts of the world; if the US is capable of contacting Russia to say that president Biden is visiting Kiev, then it is obviously possible they could come together for serious talks and serious negotiations to stop the fighting, stop the killing, stop the conflict, and bring about peace and justice."
WHY THE WEST NEEDS TO SUPPORT AND NOT BLOCK PEACE NEGOTIATIONS
1. Regardless of one's opinions on the rights and wrongs of this conflict, it has already claimed at least 100,000 lives, possibly over 200,000, including more than 8,000 civilians
abcnews.go.com/International/russia-ukraine-war-tens-thou...
Its continuation also threatens global food supplies and energy prices, plunging thousands into food and fuel poverty across Europe and leading to widespread food shortages and hunger across Africa and parts of Asia.
2. Every day the war continues, and as NATO supplies of ever more powerful weaponry continue to increase, the risk of the war escalating into a terminal nuclear conflict continues to grow. Putin and much of the Russian military establishment will do almost anything to prevent a Ukrainian victory, especially one that might see Crimea, of huge strategic importance and with a clear majority Russian population, be returned to Ukraine. Many strategic analysts and Russia specialists believe that Moscow would be willing to consider using at least tactical nuclear weapons, and that this could quickly escalate into global conflict. The ongoing conflict is also jeopardising all the remaining arms control agreements which prevent another nuclear arms race, so that even if Ukraine is victorious, we risk entering a new cold war which is likely to end, soon rather than later, in a nuclear conflict that will terminate all organised human life on earth.
3. The Ukraine War has led to a huge increase in the consumption of fossil fuels, and the reversal of key policies in the fight against climate change. It also hinders crucial cooperation between Russia and the West on this urgent issue with regards measures to curb emissions, as well as cooperation between Russian and Western scientists, particularly as Russia occupies a large part of the arctic, where research findings are vital for our understanding of how rapidly climate change is occuring.
4. We have to acknowledge that some of the West's recently declared war aims are highly questionable such as returning Crimea to Ukraine. Not only are the Russians unlikely to ever consider entering peace negotiations over its return, but over 60% of the population is Russian according to the last 2001 Ukrainian census and only 24% ( about 1 in 4) are Ukrainian. So it will be difficult to incorporate the territory back into Ukraine without at least some sort of referendum on Crimea's status. It also has to be acknowledged that the millions of Russians who live within Ukraine have for years faced harsh discrimination with severe restrictions on the importation of books in the Russian language since 2017 (Russian books had previously accounted for 60% of all titles), restrictions on the use of Russian language in schools and Russophobic attacks in the streets.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Ukraine
The Russians in the Donbass area have also suffered from years of shelling during a prolonged war Ukrainian forces waged against them, with a total death toll up to December 2021 (including both Ukrainian and insurgent forces) of over 14,000, including over 3,000 civilians killed. Yes, there was an inflow of Russian arms which also stoked the conflict, but many Russians viewed this as legitimate support for a population which was under attack from the Ukrainian army.
ukraine.un.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/Conflict-relat...
5. Finally, whatever one's views on the Ukrainian conflict, the evidence suggests that Western strategy is failing. Russian forces continue to gain ground in Ukraine on a daily basis, despite an enormous inflow of NATO arms. Russian industry is able to be fully mobilised on a war footing in a way that the West, with its just in time corporate controlled arms industry, can't compete with. NATO has already acknowledged that by the summer of this year, Ukraine is likely to run out of artillery shells. What is brutally termed the "burn rate" of NATO supplied military equipment (and indeed of Ukrainian young men) is far higher than its replenishment rate. At the same time, despite all the sanctions the Russian economy is predicted to grow faster this year than either Germany or the United Kingdom.
www.grid.news/story/global/2023/02/01/russias-economy-is-...
The ruble has actually gained slightly in strength against the US dollar, relative to its value a year ago in February 2022,
www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=RUB&to=USD
and Russian reserves remain impressively high. Much of the world, including China, India, South Africa and Brazil, remain more than willing to retain good relations with Russia and import its oil and other key commodities. Western strategy is failing to weaken Russia but the war strengthens the position of the nationalists within Russia, and gives the Russian government a pretext to clampdown on dissent. It also pushes Russia ever closer to China, while accelerating Europe's relative economic decline. So whatever one's moral view on the conflict, the lack of any coherent strategy to end this conflict and the West's refusal even to consider peace negotiations appears to be a catastrophic mistake.
On Saturday 25 February 2023, several thousand Peace Now demonstrators gathered in London to demand negotiations to bring about a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine war.
PEACE TALKS NOW.
Almost all the protesters agreed that their main demand was for a greater effort to end the horrific conflict in Ukraine, in which possibly as many as 200,000 may have already died and with the risk of escalation threatening the end of all human life on earth.
WASHINGTON AND LONDON BLOCKED TALKS IN 2022
The evidence suggests that the United States and United Kingdom blocked Ukraine from carrying through with its proposed basis for a peace deal with Russia during negotiations in March-April 2022, with the Ukrainian newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda, citing sources close to Zelensky, claiming that Boris Johnson, on his visit to Kiev on 9 April, personally lobbied the Ukrainian president to abandon peace talks and continue the conflict.
peacenews.info/node/10287/liz-truss-helped-derail-chances...
The former Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, also claimed that Washington blocked his attempts to negotiate a peace deal between Kiev and Moscow.
thegrayzone.com/2023/02/06/israeli-bennett-us-russia-ukra...
A VARIETY OF VIEWS ON SENDING ARMS
Protesters had a greater variety of views on whether the West should send any arms to Ukraine at all, with many opposing any supply of arms that they believe will only prolong the conflict and suffering and risk further escalation, while others argued that sending some arms was morally justifiable to help Ukraine, but that the supply should be carefully calibrated so as not to make a wider and even more catastrophic world war more likely.
JEREMY CORBYN'S SPEECH
Jeremy Corbyn, as he concluded his brief speech, declared that 'if all the protagonists in this conflict can come together to discuss the supply of grain to the world, and come to an agreement by which ships carrying the grain from Ukraine and Russia can go to feed other people in other parts of the world; if the US is capable of contacting Russia to say that president Biden is visiting Kiev, then it is obviously possible they could come together for serious talks and serious negotiations to stop the fighting, stop the killing, stop the conflict, and bring about peace and justice."
WHY THE WEST NEEDS TO SUPPORT AND NOT BLOCK PEACE NEGOTIATIONS
1. Regardless of one's opinions on the rights and wrongs of this conflict, it has already claimed at least 100,000 lives, possibly over 200,000, including more than 8,000 civilians
abcnews.go.com/International/russia-ukraine-war-tens-thou...
Its continuation also threatens global food supplies and energy prices, plunging thousands into food and fuel poverty across Europe and leading to widespread food shortages and hunger across Africa and parts of Asia.
2. Every day the war continues, and as NATO supplies of ever more powerful weaponry continue to increase, the risk of the war escalating into a terminal nuclear conflict continues to grow. Putin and much of the Russian military establishment will do almost anything to prevent a Ukrainian victory, especially one that might see Crimea, of huge strategic importance and with a clear majority Russian population, be returned to Ukraine. Many strategic analysts and Russia specialists believe that Moscow would be willing to consider using at least tactical nuclear weapons, and that this could quickly escalate into global conflict. The ongoing conflict is also jeopardising all the remaining arms control agreements which prevent another nuclear arms race, so that even if Ukraine is victorious, we risk entering a new cold war which is likely to end, soon rather than later, in a nuclear conflict that will terminate all organised human life on earth.
3. The Ukraine War has led to a huge increase in the consumption of fossil fuels, and the reversal of key policies in the fight against climate change. It also hinders crucial cooperation between Russia and the West on this urgent issue with regards measures to curb emissions, as well as cooperation between Russian and Western scientists, particularly as Russia occupies a large part of the arctic, where research findings are vital for our understanding of how rapidly climate change is occuring.
4. We have to acknowledge that some of the West's recently declared war aims are highly questionable such as returning Crimea to Ukraine. Not only are the Russians unlikely to ever consider entering peace negotiations over its return, but over 60% of the population is Russian according to the last 2001 Ukrainian census and only 24% ( about 1 in 4) are Ukrainian. So it will be difficult to incorporate the territory back into Ukraine without at least some sort of referendum on Crimea's status. It also has to be acknowledged that the millions of Russians who live within Ukraine have for years faced harsh discrimination with severe restrictions on the importation of books in the Russian language since 2017 (Russian books had previously accounted for 60% of all titles), restrictions on the use of Russian language in schools and Russophobic attacks in the streets.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Ukraine
The Russians in the Donbass area have also suffered from years of shelling during a prolonged war Ukrainian forces waged against them, with a total death toll up to December 2021 (including both Ukrainian and insurgent forces) of over 14,000, including over 3,000 civilians killed. Yes, there was an inflow of Russian arms which also stoked the conflict, but many Russians viewed this as legitimate support for a population which was under attack from the Ukrainian army.
ukraine.un.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/Conflict-relat...
5. Finally, whatever one's views on the Ukrainian conflict, the evidence suggests that Western strategy is failing. Russian forces continue to gain ground in Ukraine on a daily basis, despite an enormous inflow of NATO arms. Russian industry is able to be fully mobilised on a war footing in a way that the West, with its just in time corporate controlled arms industry, can't compete with. NATO has already acknowledged that by the summer of this year, Ukraine is likely to run out of artillery shells. What is brutally termed the "burn rate" of NATO supplied military equipment (and indeed of Ukrainian young men) is far higher than its replenishment rate. At the same time, despite all the sanctions the Russian economy is predicted to grow faster this year than either Germany or the United Kingdom.
www.grid.news/story/global/2023/02/01/russias-economy-is-...
The ruble has actually gained slightly in strength against the US dollar, relative to its value a year ago in February 2022,
www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=RUB&to=USD
and Russian reserves remain impressively high. Much of the world, including China, India, South Africa and Brazil, remain more than willing to retain good relations with Russia and import its oil and other key commodities. Western strategy is failing to weaken Russia but the war strengthens the position of the nationalists within Russia, and gives the Russian government a pretext to clampdown on dissent. It also pushes Russia ever closer to China, while accelerating Europe's relative economic decline. So whatever one's moral view on the conflict, the lack of any coherent strategy to end this conflict and the West's refusal even to consider peace negotiations appears to be a catastrophic mistake.
File: 2022002-0110
Cathedral Plaza, at the south end of High Street, Worcester, Worcestershire, England, United Kingdom. Sunday 6th March 2022, at around 2pm to 4pm.
About the photograph.
Those shots were in colour, I converted those two into black and white.
In this photograph, this is the same man as in file 0036 (the one that comes before this photo). The reason he looks like he is higher up than the rest of the crowd is because he was standing on the steps of the Edward Elgar statue.
The last time I attended a protest to try to do some photojournalism kind of photography, was back in 1987-89 during my college days.
Since then, been trying to get a job in photography or graphic design. Got married, started having kids, then got a divorce and became a very busy single parent and full-time carer. Now that my kids are older and left home, I’m free and independent, so I decided to try to get back into doing photography. I need to refresh my skills anyway.
In the first week of March, 2022, I heard that there was a planned protest in Worcester which is the nearest city, so the night before, I charged up my Nikon’s batteries, formatted the memory cards to make sure I have plenty of storage space left for more photos, and made sure my photography kit bag is ready.
On the afternoon of Sunday, I drove to Worcester, parked my car at the car park, and walked over to the Cathedral Plaza, which is where the protests were due to start. At that time (March 2022), the Knife Angel, a 27 feet tall sculpture made out of knives seized by the police, was on display.
As the 2pm start was approaching, more and more people arrived there, I would say there was around about between 50 to 75 people, or something like that. The protest was really more like a Speaker’s Corner kind of protest, with many people just standing around, rather than a march. At least 4 or 5 different guys took turns to speak out their statements, while some people held up their placards. There wasn’t much of a protest, but then again, it is because Worcester is a small city compared to other major cities where protests were taking part on massive scale.
I tried my best to do a photo-journalism kind of photography, I went around the crowd and took as many photos as I could. Those are just the few good photos I could find out of the approximately 400 photos I managed to take.
About the overall subject.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine started on the 24th of February 2022, and in a short space of time, many Europeans, Americans, mostly and mainly anyone of “Western” lifestyle, people living in free countries, with freedom of speech, of choice, of votes, many of them started taking to streets to protest against the Russian invasion.
There were so many signs in various languages, often advising that Russia should leave Ukraine, stop the war, Putin being a war criminal, and so on.
This protest that I attended to take the photos, was organised by the Worcester Trades Union Council, and was listed on the Stop the War Coalition website, under the No to War in Ukraine protests section. This was just one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of protests happening all around the world on Sunday 6th March, in respond to President Putin‘s decision to attack Ukraine.
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