As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, Ukrainian students at Michigan Technological University and other community members held a silent protest marking the day instead as “Russia’s Shame Day.”

Adelina Oronova and Nazar Gora, Ph.D. students at Michigan Technological University, have organized numerous protests on Tech’s campus and weekly on the Portage Lake Lift Bridge.

Russia’s celebrations distort the history of the Soviet Union’s fighting, which also included Ukrainians, Oronova said. Putin’s justification of the attacks as “denazification” is also a flimsy pretext for the invasion, she said. A letter signed by hundreds of Holocaust scholars after Russia’s invasion called Putin’s rhetoric “factually wrong, morally repugnant and deeply offensive.”

“It’s a shame saying that you’re fighting Nazis, because by default if you fought Nazis in the 1940s, you’re anti-Nazi,” Oronova said. “The Ukrainian people, they are democratic people with democratic values. (The Russians) are just doing that because they want to expand farther … they’re still thinking about building a great imperial state.”

Adelina Oronova, a Ukrainian Ph.D. student at Michigan Technological University, sets up a photo of a Ukrainian child during a protest against Russian attacks Monday.

Rows of children’s shoes lined the hill at Veterans Park to commemorate the Ukrainian children who had been killed. With Monday’s high winds, the shoes were also repurposed to hold down large photographs showing the ravages of war, with images showing abandoned baby carriages at a Kyiv train depot, or the Mariupol theater where Russian bombing killed an estimated 600 civilians in March.

Residents who are part of the Yoopers For Ukraine Facebook group collected the shoes. Pairs that are in usable condition will be donated to children in need.

At least 3,381 Ukrainians — including 235 children — have been killed in Russian attacks since the invasion began in February. The actual number is likely much higher, since reports from some combat areas have been delayed, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a release Monday.

The use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area accounted for most of the civilian casualties, the U.N. said. It included shelling from heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, as well as missiles and airstrikes.

The U.N. Human Rights Council, which suspended Russia from membership last month, announced Monday it would hold a special session Thursday to examine “the deteriorating human rights situation in Ukraine stemming from the Russian aggression.” Ukraine’s request for the session was supported by 53 other countries, including the United States.

The same protest will be held from noon to 5 p.m. today at Michigan Tech, Oronova said. Demonstrations at the bridge will also continue every Wednesday at 5 p.m. until the war is finished.

“Even if Ukraine doesn’t make the headlines anymore every day, it actually should be happening, because we are talking about more than two months of a full-scale invasion, we are talking about millions of refugees, we are talking about disrupted lives,” Oronova said. “In the best-case scenario, they’re disrupted, in the worst-case scenario, you’re dead … Ukrainian people are staying strong, and will continue doing so, but they need support.”

Other upcoming Yoopers For Ukraine activities include a film screening and a silent art auction.

The group will also host an egg-decorating event at 6 p.m. May 17 at the Calumet Art Center. The pysanka is a traditional Ukrainian Easter egg. The recommended $35 donation will go toward Ukrainian charity efforts.