Petition is addressed to: European Union

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine chose independence and democracy. In 1994, the Budapest memorandum was signed by the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, and France, guaranteeing Ukrainian independence and its territorial integrity. These assurances played a key role in Ukraine agreeing to give up its 1,900 strategic nuclear weapons, the third largest arsenal in the world.  Vladimir Putin came to power on Dec 31st, 1999 and consolidated his power in the following years.  Once he had ruthlessly eliminated any opposition and all remaining vestiges of democracy and civil society in Russia, he turned his focus to his imperialist dreams of a “Greater Russia” and began to interfere in the affairs of several former ex-Soviet states that bordered Russia.  In the beginning it was the dark arts of spy craft, like attempting to assassinate by poisoning the democratically elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yuschenko in 2004.  However much he tried, Putin could not extinguish the desire of Ukrainians for democracy and freedom and their desire to join the EU. In 2014 pro-Russian ex-President Yanukovych sought to move Ukraine away from EU direction and towards Russia, under pressure from Putin. This triggered the mass protests on Kiev\'s central Maidan square, where many Ukrainians lost their lives.  Yanukovych had to flee the country.  In response, Russia annexed parts of Ukraine: the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and parts of the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk. On 24 February 2022, a day that will live in infamy in Europe, Russia invaded Ukraine from three directions, despite lying to the world for weeks about its intentions.