The brutal Russian war of aggression in Ukraine will soon enter its 10th year (2014-2024). Since the start of the full-scale invasion phase in February 2022, tens of thousands of Ukrainians have been killed or wounded, millions have been displaced, and hundreds of establishments of Ukrainian culture have been destroyed. The goals of the Russian war are to eliminate Ukraine as an independent state and nation, annex its territories, prepare grounds for subsequent invasions and annexations in Moldova, Georgia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and create a hunger crisis in Africa and a migration crisis in the European Union.

Canada belongs to a coalition of countries that provide vital support to Ukraine by sending military equipment, applying diplomatic efforts, introducing economic sanctions on Russian companies and individuals, providing military training, supporting Ukraine’s economy, and accommodating Ukrainians fleeing the war. In a little more than a year, Canada has offered a safe haven to more than 166,000 Ukrainians through the CUAET visa program. At least 20,000 Ukrainians have settled in Ottawa. Canadians representing every corner of society and every level of government are involved in helping Ukraine and Ukrainians.

The Russian government is actively trying to undermine Canadian support of Ukraine by spreading propaganda and information warfare. One of the forms of such influence is the organization of ‘peace events.’ These events ostensibly call for ‘peace,’ but their real purpose is to garner support for the cessation of military and other aid to Ukraine so that the latter would be defeated by Russia. These events are being widely opposed by Ukrainian and Canadian activists across Canada. Another form of influence is Russian ‘cultural’ events. In its current state, Russian culture is inseparable from the aggressive Russian state, and the former has been weaponized to promote the ideas of the ‘Russian world’ (i.e. narratives of ‘peaceful, rich and great Russia,’ ‘spiritual and moral Russia standing up to the rotten West,’ and ‘a multipolar world led by Russia standing up to the US dominance and NATO’).

Yurii Nachetoi is a well-known Russian world activist in Canada who has been working hard for years to elevate the month of October to the status of ‘Russian culture heritage month’ at the federal level. As the russkiymir.ru site reported in 2020 (https://russkiymir.ru/en/news/279023/), “Russian compatriots in Canada want the parliament to proclaim October the month of Russian cultural heritage. This was stated by Yuri Nachetoi, one of the organizers of the events, which are being held for the second time this year. The events will take place on October 25 in an online format, according to the press service of organizations of Russian compatriots in Canada.”

As Yurii explains in a 2020 video (in Russian, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjpBdx3HTjk), in order to introduce Canadian legislation on the federal level for the recognition of October as Russian Heritage Month, the organizers need to demonstrate that the event has been widely celebrated in Canada for several years, and it seems the organizers were trying to do so despite the COVID restrictions of 2020 and 2021 (online) and that, in 2023, at least in some form, they are trying to do so despite the Russian invasion in Ukraine.

Yurii Nachetoi has organized and promoted multiple Russian festivals (https://www.youtube.com/@YuriNatchetoi/videos): the month of Russian culture and heritage in 2020, yearly celebrations of Russian Victory Day (May 9), Russian Memorial Day (June 22), Maslenicas, Kreshenias, a Russian rock festival (https://russianmaplerock.com/) – all of which are considered ‘duhovnie skrepy’ (spiritual pillars) in Russian fascist ideology. For example, Russian war Memorial Days are not days of remembrance and mourning, but rather the foundation of the systemic myth of Russian fascism (‘Russians fought against Nazi Germany, so all their actions are justified forever, including the current fight with Nazi Ukraine’). Likewise, “Kreshenie” (when believers are supposed to dive into an ice-hole in January) emphasizes rather the “strong Russian spirit” (as opposed to that of the ‘decadent West’) -- the original religious meaning of the celebration (the commemoration of the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan River by John the Baptist) is sidestepped here.

In 2021, Yurii was a co-organizer of the Russian musical festival “Road to Yalta,” which took place in occupied Crimea (https://doroganayaltu.ru/festival/2021/). The idea of the festival was to perform songs from Russian WWII - related folklore in different languages. Yurii’s role was to promote the festival in Canada and to bring Canadian singers to the festival. In the interview here: https://soundcloud.com/megapolis-ca/nachetoy-konkurs-april-072021-intro, Yurii references Occupied Crimea as “Russia.”

Yurii also works with Russian Radio Megapolis of Toronto (https://www.megapolis.ca/). This radio station is an example of Russian world propaganda in a mild form. Led by a professional with 20 years of experience at the Russian state radio station “Mayak,” Megapolis delivers content for Canada that is nothing more than an adapted translation of the Russian info space: all important events are happening in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and all trouble is happening in Canada and the US; Ukraine and the Russian war are never mentioned.

 Yurii (Iouri - another transliteration of Yurii) Nachetoi is one of the directors of the corporation “Russian Heritage of Canada”: https://ised-isde.canada.ca/cc/lgcy/fdrlCrpDtls.html?p=0&corpId=10534188. 

This year, instead of the month of Russian culture and heritage, Yurii Nachetoi is organizing and promoting a multicultural fall festival in Ottawa (https://ottawatourism.ca/en/see-and-do/ottawa-multicultural-fall-festival). The organizers likely rented the Horticulture Building at Lansdowne Park, they are inviting local businesses to support them (for free, as Yurii states in a video in Russian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvjbpu04xQs), and they are also planning to host a Halloween party and disco in the evening. Initially, the formal organizer of the Ottawa Multicultural Fall Festival was Russian Heritage of Canada; however, when Ukrainian activists posted this information on Facebook, the organizer changed the organization to United Communities of Canada.

United Communities of Canada (https://ised-isde.canada.ca/cc/lgcy/fdrlCrpDtls.html?p=0&corpId=10523046​, https://www.facebook.com/UnitedCommunitiesCanada/) was registered in 2017. Currently, the corporate documentation lists 3 directors: Caleb Mabano (Toronto), Oleg Strilyaniy (Thornhill), and Inga Cernei (Toronto). However, according to https://opencorporates.com/ Iouri Natchetoi (Yurii Nachetoi) was a director of this corporation prior to 2018; likely he was formally replaced by Inga Cernei. Since Yurii is a resident of Ottawa, unlike the 3 directors of the United Communities of Canada, it might be suggestive of his still being in charge of the festival, a hypothesis that is supported by his network activity.

On the webpage of the Moscow-based Press Service of the Russian Compatriots Organizations of Canada (https://canadapress.ru/organizacii-sootechestvennikov-v-kanade/), in a post dated June 21, 2021, Yurii is still listed as a contact for “Некоммерческая организация «Объединенные Общины Канады» / UCC/ United Communities of Canada/ (Юрий Начетой).”

By a strange coincidence, United Communities of Canada also promotes itself under the acronym of UCC. Another famous organization using the UCC acronym is the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, which was established in 1940. Thus, from the marketing point of view, United Communities of Canada is clearly targeting the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and is making an attempt to blur and maybe even to take over the UCC brand. 

For example, in the latest video by United Communities of Canada (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTPe6Ew0XyM) from the Capital Ukrainian Festival in Ottawa (August 19-20, 2023), of which the Ukrainian Canadian Congress was a sponsor and organizer (https://www.capitalukrainianfestival.com/sponsors.php), it is not at all clear who was organizing the event. Furthermore, the video omitted the most important part of the festival -- the photo gallery of Russian atrocities in Ukraine. The video had a little UCC (United Communities of Canada) logo in the corner, and a viewer by default would be misled into thinking that the festival had been organized by the United Communities of Canada rather than the Ukrainian Congress of Canada. 

We as Ukrainian activists believe that the Ottawa Multicultural Fall Festival is no more than a placeholder for Russian Heritage Month, and we call for a boycott of the event. 

The organizers are trying to promote their festival as ‘multicultural,’ and they are even using ‘Ukrainian’ in their advertising. However, Ukrainian activists are not aware of any support for the festival from either the Ukrainian Embassy in Canada or representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora.

Yurii himself has shown no support of Ukraine in the past 2 years: https://www.facebook.com/ynatchetoi. Yes, focusing on the war is painful, but ignoring the Russian war in Ukraine and supporting the narratives of the Russian world and Russian fascism, even in a milder form, is to fight the war on the Russian side and against Ukraine.

It should be noted that the Canadian notion of multiculturalism and the Russian one are not at all the same. While Canadian multiculturalism embraces and celebrates many cultures and also calls for forgiveness and reconciliation, the Russian version is to colonize, to annex, to russify, and to erase the cultures of the nations conquered by Russia. We Canadians of Ukrainian, Belarusian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Georgian, Moldavian, Polish, Finnish, Czech, Hungarian, Afghan, Korean descent (representing the nations that suffered from USSR/Russian invasions and occupations), along with newcomer Ukrainians who recently fled from the Russian invasion, warn our fellow citizens of Ottawa about this important distinction, and we call for a boycott of the Russian Multicultural Festival in disguise.

The symbolism of dates is quite important in Russian world fascist ideology. Historically, it relies on several key dates: New Year January 1-10 (celebrated at the beginning of the year, and not at the end, as in the rest of the world), February 23 (the day of the “Red Army” or the “Day of Defenders of the Fatherland”), March 8 (Women’s Day), March 1 (Workers’ Day, as opposed to the Labour Day celebrated in September in many countries), May 9 (Victory Day, as opposed to May 8), June 22 (the day in 1941 when Nazi Germany, a USSR ally from 1939 in dividing and occupying Poland, suddenly invaded the USSR), and … October 25/November 8/November 4. The latter celebration, closing the yearly cycle, initially celebrated the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and in modern Russia was rebranded as National Unity Day. So when the Russian Multicultural Festival emerges in the Fall, please review the celebrations of the past: this is the celebration of November 7, 1980 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lubHej8a8SY), when every occupied nation of the USSR was forced to organize a 'joyful' celebration in its capital and basically everywhere -- in every city, every town, every village, every enterprise and educational facility.

In Ukrainian history, October 21 is when the events of 1947 are commemorated -- operation “West”. In just one day in 1947, starting at 2:00 a.m., the USSR occupation regime deported 26,332 families, 77,791 people in total: 18,866 men, 35,685 women, and 23,240 children under 15 years old from Western Ukraine to exile in Siberia https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9E%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%86%D1%96%D1%8F_%C2%AB%D0%97%D0%B0%D1%85%D1%96%D0%B4%C2%BB​, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73iearAWF0Q. 

For the third time, we call for the boycott of the so-called ‘multicultural festival’, and we call Ukrainian activists and supporters of Ukraine to come to the Horticulture Building at Lansdowne Park on October 21, 2023 (12:00-7:00 pm), to picket the premises with posters devoted to the commemoration of the 1947 deportation of Ukrainians.

Stand with Ukraine image credits: Image by starline on Freepik