TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Russians in Moscow and other cities on Friday delivered flowers to the Ukrainian poet and held a one-man picket with anti-war slogans to mark the one-year anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. .
Russian media and civil rights groups have reported at least a dozen arrests as part of a sweeping crackdown on dissent in the Kremlin, which has reached unprecedented levels since the war began.
At least eight people have been arrested in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth largest city. They all brought flowers to the city’s memorial commemorating victims of political repression.
Online news agency Sota has documented at least seven people arrested in St. Petersburg after bringing flowers to a monument to famous Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko. Footage released by the outlet shows a police officer explaining to the couple that they broke coronavirus restrictions.
Sota also reported on a person arrested in Moscow. There, people flocked and laid wreaths at the monument to her Lesya Ukrainka, another famous Ukrainian poet. A contingent of police officers watched the group, but mostly did not leave.
Five of them were arrested in the Siberian city of Barnaul, according to the Sibir.Realii news agency, including a man picketing the central square with a placard reading “Stop Silence”. In another Siberian city, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, a woman was arrested for protesting with a banner that read: Please forgive us, we have ruined our country,” the outlet reported. Russians across the country actively protested the war in Ukraine in the first week of the invasion.The mass gatherings quickly disappeared after thousands were arrested, but isolated pickets and arrests Continues throughout the year.
Russian authorities are enforcing laws enacted shortly after the invasion, effectively criminalizing public statements against what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine.
The Russian parliament has approved a bill banning the discrediting of the Russian military and the spread of false information, a week after he invaded Ukraine.
OVD-Info said in a statement on Friday that “on 305 of the 365 war days, security forces arrested people for their anti-war stance in Crimea annexed to various Russian cities.”
By mid-December, the group counted 378 people indicted for their anti-war stances in 69 regions of Russia and the Crimea Peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. The group also counted more than 5,500 administrative cases for allegations of discrediting the Russian military.
