Thousands of Russian citizens are risking arrest and even jail time after taking to the streets across the country in protest of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine, according to various reports.
So far, Russian police and internal security authorities have arrested more than 2,000 people who are protesting the conflict. There are also some very prominent Russians who are voicing their frustration at Putin’s decision to send more than 100,000 troops thus far into Ukraine, with some of them being retaliated against specifically by the Kremlin.
The Blaze reports:
Russian authorities arrested at least 1,866 people in 60 cities who had been participating in anti-war protests since Thursday, according to OVD Info – a Russia-based human rights organization that monitors political persecutions.
There were huge protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg condemning Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
This is Moscow, #Russia. People went out to the streets protesting against the war and Russian invasion in #Ukraine. According to human rights defenders, more than 150 people have been detained so far for protests in Russia. Their number will most certainly grow pic.twitter.com/ZcdY3vLtws
— Hanna Liubakova (@HannaLiubakova) February 24, 2022
This is Saint Petersburg, #Russia. At least 705 people have been arrested today at anti-war protests that have taken place in 40 Russian cities, the OVD-Info protest monitor said. pic.twitter.com/7XXoswbpt6
— Hanna Liubakova (@HannaLiubakova) February 24, 2022
Prominent Russians have also taken part in the protests.
Ivan Urgant – a popular talk show host on state-run Channel One, put a black square on Instagram with the caption: “Fear and pain. No to war.”
The Guardian reported, “His show has not gone on air since. Channel One has claimed it is just a scheduling issue, although several reports in Russian media say that they have been blacklisted.”
Meanwhile, a Channel One spokesperson told the Associated Press that the decision to remove Urgant’s show from the schedule was allegedly not linked to his anti-invasion protest on social media. Rather, the network claimed that officials made a decision to replace entertainment programs with news and political programming “because of the current situation.”
Rapper Oxxxymiron also canceled a half-dozen sold-out venues in Moscow and St. Petersburg because of Putin’s aggression.
“I cannot entertain you when Russian missiles are falling on Ukraine,” Oxxxymiron, whose real name is Miron Fyodorov, noted. “When residents of Kyiv are forced to hide in basements and in the metro, while people are dying.”
“I know that most people in Russia are against this war, and I am confident that the more people would talk about their real attitude to it, the faster we can stop this horror,” Fyodorov said, the New York Times reported. He added: “This is a crime and a catastrophe.”
Noted Yuri Shevchuk, the frontman of the Soviet-era rock band DDT: “We’re being pulled like through an ice hole into the past, into the 19th, 18th, 17th centuries. And people refuse to accept it.”
The Blaze: “Elena Chernenko, a veteran journalist for the Moscow-based Kommersant newspaper, published an open letter voicing her opposition to the war in Ukraine. More than 280 other journalists signed her letter, including some who are employed at state-run news agencies.”
The letter got her expelled from the Foreign Ministry press pool, where she had worked for 11 years, with the Kremlin claiming she demonstrated “unprofessional” behavior.
Even the daughter of Putin’s own spokesperson — Yelizaveta Peskova, the 24-year-old daughter of Dmitry Peskov — called for an end to the war.
Newsweek reported, “The 24-year-old posted ‘HET BOЙHE’ (or ‘no to war’ in English) to her Telegram account.”
The post was eventually deleted.
