- A Ukrainian influencer urged her fans to protest the Russian invasion of her home country.
- "You can stop this war," Lesia Ivanovna Nikitiuk said in an Instagram video. "Go on the streets."
A Ukrainian influencer on Friday urged her fans to protest Russia's invasion of
"You can stop this war," Lesia Ivanovna Nikitiuk said in a video posted to Instagram. "Go on the streets, not in IKEA, not in Apple Stores."
"Go on the squares of your cities," she added, urging her followers to publicly demonstrate to oppose the invasion, but particularly aiming her words at those in Russia.
"Stop this war! Because this war is led against you as well, against your economics," she said to her 3.8 million followers.
Since Russia launched its attack on Ukraine, protests have erupted in cities around the world. Thousands of people have been detained in Russia after participating in anti-war demonstrations, including in Russian President Vladimir Putin's hometown of St. Petersburg. Russia's jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny has also urged the entire world to protest against Russia.
To her followers outside of Ukraine, she gave background as to what is going on in her home country.
"Today, our morning started with Russian tanks shooting at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant," she said.
"If it explodes," she said, "the blast wave will reach the Ural."
"Our morning started with a school being bombed in Zhytomyr. Also in Zhytomyr, a maternity hospital was bombed. A maternity hospital, just think about it, a place where people must be born, not die," she added.
Nikitiuk also shared a message directly with her Russian followers.
"You have lived my travels, achievements, and disappointments together with me. But what is happening in my country right now, you cannot experience with me. You must see it," she said of the Russian invasion in Ukraine that began on February 24.
"But you can't see it because your TV channels don't show it to you," she said to her Russian fans. "They lie in your face."
Nikitiuk made her first post about the conflict on February 16, sharing a picture of a Ukrainian flag she carries "in her suitcase," the same day President Zelinsky called for "unity" amid fear of invasion. It has received over 127,000 likes.
The influencer has 3.8 million followers on Instagram and 400,000 followers on TikTok. Before the invasion of Ukraine, she typically posted pictures of herself on the beach as well as videos with her dog. She has also presented several Ukrainian TV shows since 2011, and in 2018, she voiced the character of Ericka in the Ukrainian-dubbed version of the Sony Pictures movie "Hotel Transylvania 3."
Many Ukrainian influencers have been using their platforms to document the attack over the last few weeks. The Guardian reported that these influencers, who once posted about their glamorous lifestyles, are now sharing footage of missiles and videos about how to make molotov cocktails.
Translations by Oleksander Vynogradov.