Russians arrested after holding protests, laying flowers on Ukraine war anniversary – National
Russians in Moscow and other cities delivered flowers to the Ukrainian poet and held a solo picket with anti-war slogans on Friday to mark the one-year anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russian media and civil rights groups have reported the detention of at least a dozen people as part of the Kremlin’s sweeping crackdown on dissent, which has surged to unprecedented levels since the war began.
At least eight people were detained in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city.
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Online news outlet Sota filmed at least seven people being detained in St. Petersburg after bringing flowers to a monument to famous Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko. Footage posted by the outlet shows a police officer explaining to the couple that they have violated coronavirus restrictions.
Sota also reported on persons detained in Moscow. There, people flocked and laid wreaths at the monument to her Lesya Ukrainka, another famous Ukrainian poet. A contingent of police officers monitored the group but did little to interrupt them.
According to the Sibir.Realii news outlet, five people were detained in the Siberian city of Barnaul, including a man who picketed the central square with a placard reading “Stop Silence”. was In another Siberian city, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, they said: “We are in mourning. We are in mourning. Forgive us, we are ruining our country.” We did,” the outlet reported.
Russians throughout Ukraine actively protested the war in Ukraine during the first week of the invasion. Large gatherings quickly failed after thousands were detained, but solopiqués and detentions continued throughout the year.
Russian authorities enacted a law in the immediate aftermath of the invasion that effectively criminalized public representation of what the Kremlin called a “special military operation” in Ukraine.
The Russian parliament has rubber-stamped a bill making it illegal to discredit the Russian military or spread false information, a week after Russian troops invaded Ukraine.
“For 305 of the 365 days of the war, security forces detained people in Crimea annexed to various Russian cities for their anti-war stance,” OVD-Info said in a statement on Friday.
As of mid-December, the group counted 378 people under criminal prosecution for anti-war stances in 69 regions of Russia and the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Russian army.
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