Fifty years ago, on August 28, 1968, Ukrainian leaders and organizations in the United States and Canada expressed “shock, indignation and outrage” following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia on August 21, which left 137 dead and more than 500 injured.
Dr. Lev Dobriansky, chairman of the National Captive Nations Committee and president of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, called on the U.S. to voice outrage at the United Nations, and elsewhere, and to seek U.N. intervention in Czechoslovakia. The Organization for the Defense of Four Freedoms for Ukraine (Washington Branch) marched in the Czechoslovakia-sponsored demonstration protesting the “treacherous aggression.”
On August 28, Dr. Dobriansky sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, calling for the “immediate suspension of diplomatic relations with the USSR,” suspension of all trade and cultural exchange agreements, an action in the U.N. Security Council toward the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Czechoslovakia, the immediate convocation of the NATO allies for “redressing its military posture” and “immediate and unstinted support of the Captive Nations,” who will prove “to be the surest and most dependable allies of the United States.” The policy of “not inconveniencing the Russians” has encouraged the Kremlin totalitarians to bolder acts of aggression and provocation, he argued.
The World Congress of Ukrainian Students (known by its Ukrainian-based acronym as CESUS), in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General U Thant, wrote, “We have just witnessed the stamping out of human freedom in a small and defenseless country and see its sovereignty trampled down by the Red Army.” CESUS asked the U.N. to unmask the “true nature of Moscow’s objectives” and demanded the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from Czechoslovakia.
The Ukrainian Canadian Committee (today the Ukrainian Canadian Congress) sent a telegram to the U.N. secretary-general on August 21 expressing the shock and “deep indignation” of half a million Canadians of Ukrainian origin at the “new violation of national and human rights.” Signed by UCC President Dr. B. Kushnir and General Secretary W.J. Sarchuk, the telegram called on all nations of the world to “unite and take immediate action in defense of human freedom.” Dr. Kushnir sent another telegram to Mr. Thant on behalf of the World Congress of Free Ukrainians (now known as the Ukrainian World Congress). “More than 2 million Ukrainians living outside Ukraine join the world in protesting and condemning the military occupation of Czechoslovakia by Soviet Russia.”
The World Congress of Free Ukrainians commended the delegations at the U.N. Security Council who had joined forces in defending freedom “against Soviet Russian imperialism.”
The Czechoslovak-Polish-Ukrainian Council of Friendship in Chicago wired a message to Secretary Rusk on August 22 urging that the U.S. delegation to the U.N. must insist on the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia.
Source: “Ukrainian reaction to invasion: shock, indignation and outrage. Leaders demand withdrawal of troops from Czechoslovakia,” The Ukrainian Weekly, August 31, 1968.