Russians arrested after holding protests, laying flowers on Ukraine war anniversary – National | 24CA News

Russians in Moscow and different cities introduced flowers to Ukrainian poets and held one-person pickets with antiwar slogans Friday to mark the primary anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russian media and civil rights teams reported a minimum of a dozen detentions, a part of the Kremlin’s sweeping crackdown on dissent that has spiked to unprecedented ranges because the begin of the struggle.

At least eight individuals had been detained in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest metropolis, in keeping with OVD-Info, a authorized assist group that tracks political arrests. They all had introduced flowers to the town’s monument to victims of political repression, the group mentioned.

Online news outlet Sota filmed a minimum of seven individuals getting detained in St. Petersburg after they introduced flowers to a monument for the famend Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko. Footage posted by the outlet confirmed a police officer explaining to some that that they had violated coronavirus restrictions.

Sota additionally reported an individual detained in Moscow, the place individuals flocked to the monument of Lesya Ukrainka, one other famend Ukrainian poet, to put flowers. A contingent of cops monitored the group however largely didn’t interrupt.

Five individuals had been detained within the Siberian metropolis of Barnaul, in keeping with the Sibir.Realii news outlet, together with a person who picketed a central sq. with a placard studying “Stop being silent.” In one other Siberian metropolis, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, a lady was detained for protesting with a banner that learn, “We’re mourning. Forgive us, we screwed up our country,” the outlet reported.

Russians all throughout the nation actively protested in opposition to the struggle in Ukraine through the first week of the invasion. Large rallies rapidly fizzled after hundreds had been detained, however solo pickets — and detentions — have persevered all year long.

2:58Putin is ‘unmoored’ from actuality as Russia-Ukraine struggle anniversary approaches, Joly tells U.N.

Russian authorities have enforced a regulation enacted quickly after the invasion that successfully criminalizes any public expression in opposition to what the Kremlin refers to as a “special military operation” in Ukraine.

The Russian parliament rubber-stamped a invoice that outlawed discrediting the Russian navy or spreading false data every week after Moscow’s troops rolled into Ukraine.

OVD-Info mentioned in a press release Friday that “for 305 out of 365 days of the war, security forces detained people for their anti-war position in various cities of Russia and the annexed Crimea.”

As of mid-December, the group had counted 378 individuals dealing with felony prosecution for his or her antiwar positions in 69 Russian areas and the Crimean Peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014. The group additionally counted greater than 5,500 administrative instances on the cost of discrediting the Russian military.

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