The danger for the Greek community in Ukraine is growing because of the atmosphere of war in Eastern Europe, as at noon on Monday, two ethnic Greeks were shot to death by Ukrainian soldiers – two others were injured.
Despite the fact that Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias requested contact with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba in order to emphasise the need to protect the Greek community in Ukraine, Greek diplomacy is “hand in hand.”
This was explained by the representative of the “Save Donbass” organisation, Andreas Zafeiris, who has been in the self-proclaimed People’s Democratic Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk for aid work.
READ MORE: Ukraine does not consider Greeks to be indigenous to the country.
“The Greek government will avoid pursuing the issue and linking it to the Russian-Ukrainian crisis as its commitments to NATO and Ukraine are clear as it hastened to support them from the beginning,” believes Zafeiris.
According to what became known from the official announcement of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, responsible for the double homicide are “three soldiers of the Ukrainian army, who got involved with the above expatriates for an insignificant reason.”
“Many shadows for the two deaths”
It is interesting, according to the representative of the “Save Donbass” organisation, that there are still many shadows around the two deaths.
“There is no exact information about who the soldiers were, to which unit they belonged and whether they will be referred to a military court,” he said, adding: “Normally, the causes of the conflict should be fully investigated.
“Greek diplomacy cannot effectively defend the expatriates as the detailed investigation could have led to rivalry with Ukraine.
“The West does not want anything like that.
“Consequently, Greece has fallen into the western trap and did not see the danger during Dendias’ recent visit to the region.
“For this reason, it is not unlikely that other expatriates will die unjustly at the hands of Ukrainians or their allies.”
He added that it was not just Ukrainian soldiers who are a danger to the Greek community as mercenaries and neo-Nazi militias had been transferred to the area.
The “damned” village of the ethnic Greeks
The two killed by the Ukrainian soldiers were shot in the village of Granitne on the border with the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk.
This is not the first time that the village has been “cursed” because of the Ukrainian crisis.
Gratnitne is at the crossfire between the Donetsk defence forces and those of the Ukrainian military and their Far Right allies.
According to Zafeiris, it is estimated that 3,500 Greeks live in the village.
“They are not Pontians who fled there after Turkish-perpetrated genocide, but they come from the Crimea and have lived there during the Ancient and Byzantine eras, for 2,500 years,” the representative explained.
“In the purely Greek village, they speak a dialect similar to that spoken in Tsalka, Georgia,” he emphasised, while it is worth noting that the first church and the Greek school were built from the 17th century onwards.
READ MORE: Granitne: The Greek village in Ukraine which now mourns two dead expatriates (PHOTOS)
