Russians don’t seem to want Vladimir Putin‘s war on Ukraine, either.
For the fourth day in a row, crowds took to the streets of more than 40 of Russia’s biggest cities and faced police in riot gear as they protested the invasion of neighboring Ukraine. Demonstrations were reported in Moscow, Putin’s hometown of St. Petersburg, and as far north as Siberia. The protests came despite a social media blackout and threats from the government to imprison “traitors” who aid or support Ukraine.
“No to war,” demonstrators reportedly chanted in the Russian capital before police hauled them away in vans.
Some protesters carried handwritten signs with peace symbols and anti-war slogans in Russian and Ukrainian. Some wore masks with the word “Enough” scrawled on them.
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The protests are sure to be an embarrassment for Putin, who appears to be blindsided by the difficulty his troops are having in seizing Kyiv and bringing the much smaller Ukraine to heel. Putin has also seen pushback from members of the Duma, Russia’s Parliament.
“At least 1675 people have been detained today at anti-war protests all over Russia,” the human rights monitor OVD-Info tweeted. “At least 919 of them — in Moscow.”
At least 1675 people have been detained today at anti-war protests all over Russia. At least 919 of them — in Moscow pic.twitter.com/lhloKzJNSo
— ОВД-Инфо (@OvdInfo) February 24, 2022
The protests have sprung up every day since Thursday. More than 5,500 people have been detained since the invasion began, according to OVD-Info. It is not clear what protesters are being charged with — and given Russia’s infamous legal system, it may not matter.
“For each fact of providing financial and other assistance to a foreign state in activities directed against the security of the Russian Federation, a legal assessment will be given,” read a statement from the National Prosecutor General’s Office.
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State and independent media were ordered to remove any reports describing the action in Ukraine as an “assault, invasion or declaration of war.”
Sunday’s protests came on the seventh anniversary of the murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, a fierce critic of Putin who agitated against Russia’s takeover of Crimea in 2014. In Moscow, some of the arrests reportedly took place at a makeshift memorial at the site near the Kremlin where Nemtsov was shot, a witness told Reuters.
