This Saturday, the ABN Committee of Canada proudly hosted the first Anti-Imperial Bloc of Nations conference in Toronto since 1986.
The conference, entitled “Responding to Rupture: Russia, Global Power Shifts, and Democratic Strategy,” brought together policymakers, academics, journalists, representatives of captive nations, and members of the Ukrainian Canadian community for an important discussion on the future of regional security, decolonization, democratic resilience, and the evolving geopolitical landscape.
The event featured distinguished speakers and panelists from Canada, the United States, Ukraine, and partner organizations who examined Russia’s ongoing aggression, the role of captive nations in shaping the future of their nations, hybrid threats, information warfare, democratic strategy, and the importance of coordinated Western support for Ukraine and national liberation movements.
One of the distinguished guests was the President of the Ukrainian World Congress, and here is his greeting.
Address by Paul Grod, President of the Ukrainian World Congress, at the conference
Good afternoon, Mr. President Oleh Medunytsya, Mr. Chairman Orest Steciw. Honourable members of Parliament. Distinguished delegates of the captive nations. Ladies and gentlemen. Dear friends.
I bring you greetings from the Ukrainian World Congress, and the global Ukrainian communities we represent across eighty-five countries.
I wish to begin by thanking Chairman Steciw and the ABN Committee of Canada for convening this conference, and for your steadfast and valuable work.
The Anti-Imperial Bloc of Nations is a force like no other that unifies the freedom loving peoples who today are being oppressed or threatened by Russian imperialism.
A bit of personal history…….. I was deeply influenced as a teenager by the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations – having attended the famous 1986 “Campaign Freedom Conference,” in Toronto that was heavily attended by representatives of various anti-communist resistance movements and active freedom fighters.
As such, I am proud that the Ukrainian World Congress was instrumental in reconstituting the modern ABN in Lithuania 2 years ago. We endorsed the Kaunas Resolution. We formally joined the Anti-Imperial Bloc of Nations framework. And we remain committed to that framework, today and in the years ahead.
Before I turn to the matter before us, I ask your indulgence for a moment of remembrance.
Almost two years ago, in June of 2024, only a few days after the founding ABN Congress, our dear friend and brother in arms Stefan Romaniw was taken from us. As 1st Vice President of the Ukrainian World Congress he had travelled from Melbourne, Australia to Kaunas, Lithuania to initiate the inaugural congress of this Anti-Imperial Bloc of Nations. He was integral to its founding. He was an architect of its vision. And the delegates of that congress elected him a Vice President of the ABN. On the long journey home, from Lithuania to Australia, his life’s work came to a tragic end.
Although Stefan is no longer with us, the organization that meets in this room rests, in no small part, on his shoulders. To Stefan, our gratitude is without measure. To his family, who gave him to this work, our thanks are eternal. May Stefan’s memory be eternal.
Vichnaya yomu pamyat.
Mr. President, distinguished delegates – the Ukrainian World Congress and the Anti-Imperial Bloc of Nations share a common mission…
The Russian empire – must come to an end!
Not be managed. Not be contained. Not be waited out. It must be Ended!!!
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Anything less leaves the empire alive. A wounded empire returns. It returned in 1999. It returned in 2008. It returned in 2014 – and in 2022 it returned with everything it had in a desperate attempt to rebuild its empire. We must continuously educate the world that empires can never be appeased – they must be destroyed.
We must hold our common focus on the pillars that will bring this empire down.
Sustained military, economic and political support for Ukraine, which is the front line of every nation represented in this room.
Sanctions that choke the Russian war economy. The frozen sovereign assets of the Russian state transferred to the Ukrainian people, where the destruction is being done.
And accountability for the war crimes. The people who ordered or committed these crimes belong in the Hague not in the Kremlin or in their luxury homes in London, Vienna or Dubai.
After four years, the Ukrainian people have proven to every captive nation, and to the civilized world, that Russian imperialism can and must be defeated.
Today Ukraine has brought the war back to Russia.
As we sit in this room, refineries across Russia are burning. Russian fuel terminals run empty. The Black Sea fleet, once the pride of empire, lies broken on the seabed, or cowers in distant ports for fear of Ukrainian attacks. More than a million Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded. For the first time, the Russian people are beginning to feel the cost of the war their state has chosen, and which they have permitted.
And that cost must be fully borne. Every Russian citizen must answer for the crimes committed in their name. And generations of Russians will repent, and will pay reparations, for the cities laid waste, the lives extinguished, and the mass killings done in the name of the Russian empire – the Russian people will be held accountable!
To the captive nations represented in this room, and to those represented through the ABN’s work: the moment is now! It is time for you to act in defiance of your oppressor. Every blocked railway, every refused conscription, every cracked column of the imperial machine, brings your independence closer.
History will honour the brave who stood against tyranny, not those who cowered before it.
And there is one truth this conference must continue to put plainly to the world, because our governments still flinch from it.
Russian chauvinism is the engine of Russian imperialism. It is an ideology of supremacy and contempt for human dignity. It belongs in the same moral category as Nazi ideology. Until our political leaders name it so, the West will keep mistaking a war of empire for a border dispute. The ABN’s voice on this question is indispensable, and the Ukrainian World Congress will carry it in capitals of every civilized nation.
And so our common work is also a work of advocacy.
We must continue to educate the citizens and advocate to the decision makers in the capitals of Europe, Asia, South American, Canada to keep support for Ukraine strong, and to ensure it is not eroded by fatigue or by false neutrality. And we must work together, with our full combined moral weight, to return the United States to the role it has played for more than eighty years: the steadfast defender of the captive nations and champion of the free world.
Dear friends, the Ukrainian World Congress will continue the fight together with the Anti-Imperial Bloc of Nations, and every captive nation until the Russian empire, that has cost us so much, is no more.
I wish you a productive conference, and Godspeed in the work that follows it.
Glory to the captive nations. May we see them all free. Slava Ukraini!
