Tuesday morning in the Hauptwache subway station: The message is running on the news screen between the platforms: “Heavy explosions in Kyiv” – along with a photo of a bombed block of flats and a destroyed car.

A woman waiting for the next train starts screaming – “Fucking Putin, fuck Putin, murderer, murderer – people are dying in Ukraine, isn’t anyone helping us?” Then a few obviously Ukrainian snippets of sentences before the despairing woman breaks into loud sobs breaks out and only calms down again when two other women turn to her and talk to her gently.

"Your relatives are in Kyiv," says one of the comforters, almost apologetically, to the bystanders, who are looking at the scene curiously.

The weather forecast can now be seen on the video screen.

In the afternoon, it says, it will rain.

Two days earlier, more than 11,000 people demonstrated in Frankfurt against the war in Eastern Europe.

Before the start of the demonstration, Frankfurt's mayor Peter Feldmann (SPD), a political scientist and lawyer, the chairman of the DGB Hesse-Thuringia and one representative each from the globalization-critical organization Attac and the Frankfurt educational institution Anne Frank spoke on a grandstand on Opernplatz.

All from Germany - a Ukrainian is not planned as a speaker.

Just because a Ukrainian living in Frankfurt complained to the organizers about this faux pas, she was finally allowed on the podium.

At least indirectly, a representative of the victims of the war has a chance to speak.

The exiled Ukrainian leaves no doubt that she expects more from Western democracies for her compatriots back home than sleeping bags, warm clothing and toiletries.

Those who have to defend themselves against aggressors like Putin need weapons.

Meron Mendel, the director of the Anne Frank educational institution, doesn't want to go that far.

But he, too, accuses the German government of wanting to “buy itself free” of responsibility for Russia's war against Ukraine through “symbolic gestures”, such as taking in a few thousand refugees.

Against fainting

It's a dilemma.

All of the 11,000 demonstrators in Ukraine would like to help in some way.

But how?

While protesters waving blue and yellow flags are demanding increased arms deliveries or even a no-fly zone over Ukraine to be enforced by force from NATO, others insist on adhering to the traditional pacifist slogan “Make peace without weapons”.

One poster explains Putin's megalomania with a genital organ that is too small, while on others, rally participants express their anger against the Russian potentate in the three-word formula "Fuck you Putin".

Still others demand "money for climate and social affairs instead of armaments".