February 22, 2026 - Not territories — people!
Four years of full-scale war
Four years of full-scale invasion. Four years of resistance.
We took to one of the main squares in Turin to mark this tragic date and to remind the citizens of a still-peaceful Europe that an unjust, bloody war is happening right next door — a war in which people who until recently lived ordinary European lives are now defending their right to freedom, self-determination, and the future of their country.
We dedicated this event to the occupied territories and civilian prisoners. We collected and recorded eyewitness accounts: testimonies of grief, pain, fear, loss, captivity, and torture — stories of what the arrival of an aggressor brings to ordinary people on their own land. Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Konstantynivka, Mariupol…
It is incredibly difficult, but we must remember this when discussing war and peace.
The testimonies were accompanied by photographs of destruction, deprivation, death, and the pain of the survivors.
You can read the full versions of the stories here. Our interviewees and we want them to be heard — for people to be the priority in any negotiations, and for European institutions and political forces to raise the issue of prisoners — especially civilians — in every possible international forum.
Territories are not just abstract outlines on a map, nor a faceless mass. They are living people, and behind every name lies a difficult fate. We want to hope that the future will be kind to our witnesses.
The account by the sister of Sergei Likhomanov about her brother's abduction by Russian security forces was accompanied by an intense and moving performance, prepared by our youngest participants.
We illustrated the testimonies of relatives of Ukrainians abducted by Russian occupiers with chairs — one for each hostage of the system of terror. The merciless Moloch strips its victims of faces and bodies, and only their names continue to ring out in demands for their release. The last chair was a tribute to Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna, who perished in the very dungeons she had devoted her all-too-short life to exposing.
The portraits by Viktor Melamed that we displayed were dedicated to the memory of fallen Ukrainians. The austere graphics and sparse lines, in which an entire human fate is condensed, have a paradoxically powerful effect — they engrave themselves in memory and wound the heart. Ukrainian flags framed this improvised gallery against the backdrop of the building of Italy's first parliament.
Al termine del comizio abbiamo preso parte all’iniziativa globale «People are key!», che chiede la liberazione dei prigionieri di guerra, dei civili detenuti illegalmente, dei prigionieri politici, nonché il ritorno dei bambini ucraini deportati. Abbiamo chiesto a tutti i partecipanti di far tintinnare le chiavi — simbolo della casa che ognuno ha in tasca, ad eccezione dei prigionieri.
At the end of the rally, we joined the global action «People are key!», which calls for the release of prisoners of war, illegally detained civilians, and political prisoners, as well as the return of deported Ukrainian children. We asked all participants to jingle their keys — a symbol of the home that everyone carries in their pocket, except for those in captivity.
From the outside it may have looked simple, but behind the scenes there was a complex process of coordinating witnesses, revising texts down to the smallest detail, selecting photographs, translating into two languages, and building the website… Special thanks go to our youngest participants, who took full charge of the artistic part of our rally — the performance. Everyone else saw it for the first time during the rally, along with the audience. An outstanding effort, behind which lay an enormous amount of work — from refining the idea to rehearsals, for which time had to be found in an already overloaded schedule.
You can see more photos and videos here.