Dunedin actor Terry MacTavish MNZM said she was a reluctant MC but she was pleased to be out showing support for Ukraine, along with about 40 others.
The purpose of the gathering was to let the world know that even on the other side of the world, people were opposed to war, the killing of children, displacement of three million refugees and the bombing of maternity hospitals.
As an actor she was particularity horrified by the events in Mariupol yesterday.
Theatres should be places for entertainment and joy but one was bombed while it was sheltering civilians who were killed and maimed yesterday, she said.
Protest organiser Olha Viazenko said the crimes of Russian forces were becoming more and more serious.
She said the theatre in Mariupol held up to a thousand people who had lost their homes.
"Firstly, we cried because it happened. And the second time that day we cried because people survived," she said.
Dunedin MP David Clark said New Zealand was joining the world by calling on Vladimir Putin to do the right thing by ending the invasion.
He had a personal connection to Ukraine as he had been on the first school exchange to the country after the iron curtain fell in 1990.
He had experienced great kindness and it was painful to see what was going on in the country now, he said.
Emeritus professor Kevin Clements said he was optimistic negotiations would secure peace, but Ukraine would likely have to make some concessions.
He said he was attending in solidarity with the Ukrainian people.
He believed Russia had crossed the "normative line of acceptability" and had provoked a large reaction across the globe.
The invasion of a sovereign state was too much of a return to the twentieth century for many people, he said.
