Police officers arrest protesters in St.Petersburg, Russia, on Thursday. Hundreds of people gathered in Moscow and St.Petersburg to protest against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Dmitri Lovetsky / AP
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Dmitri Lovetsky / AP
Police officers arrest protesters in St.Petersburg, Russia, on Thursday. Hundreds of people gathered in Moscow and St.Petersburg to protest against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Dmitri Lovetsky / AP
MOSCOW – Thousands of shocked Russians on Thursday turned to criticize their country’s invasion of Ukraine as emotional calls for protest grew on social media. About 1,745 people in 54 Russian cities have been detained, at least 957 of them in Moscow.
Hundreds of posts poured in condemning Moscow’s most aggressive actions since the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. Vladimir Putin called the attack a “special military operation” aimed at protecting civilians in eastern Ukraine from “genocide” – a false claim that the US had predicted would serve as a pretext for an invasion. invasion, and many Russians rejected it outright.
Tatyana Usmanova, an opposition activist in Moscow, wrote on Facebook that she thought she was dreaming when she woke up at 5:30 a.m. to the news she called “a disgrace that will remain with us forever.” me now.”
“I want to beg the people of Ukraine for forgiveness. We did not vote for those who caused the war,” she said.
As sirens went off in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, and loud explosions were heard there and in other cities, Russians signed open letters and online petitions asking the Kremlin to stop attack, which Ukraine’s health minister said killed at least 57 Ukrainians and wounded dozens. than.
“Public opinion is in shock, people are in shock,” political analyst Abbas Gallyamov told the AP news agency.
A petition, started by a prominent human rights campaigner, Lev Ponomavyov, attracted more than 150,000 signatures within hours and more than 330,000 by the end of the day. More than 250 journalists put their names in an open letter criticizing the act of aggression. Another was signed by about 250 scientists, while 194 city council members in Moscow and other cities signed the third.
Zoya Vorobey, a resident of Korolyov, a town on the outskirts of Moscow, said: “I am so worried for the people, I am so worried I cry. “I’ve been watching TV since this morning, every minute, to see if anything has changed. Unfortunately, nothing.”
A number of Russian celebrities and public figures, including some who work for state television, spoke out against the attack. Yelena Kovalskaya, the director of a state-funded theater in Moscow, announced on Facebook that she was quitting, saying “it is impossible to work for a killer and get paid by him.”
“I know that many of you now feel despair, helplessness, shame over Vladimir Putin’s attack on the friendly country of Ukraine. But I hope you do not despair,” the activist said. Human rights activist Marina Litvinovich said in a Facebook video, calling for mass protests on Thursday night.
“We, the Russian people, are against the war that Putin caused. We do not support this war, it is being waged not on our behalf,” Litvinovich said.
But the authorities don’t have that.
