Moscow Invasion Of Ukraine Protests, More Than 4,300 Protesters Detained By Russian Police

Illustration of anti-Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Wikimedia Commons/Elke Wetzig)

JAKARTA - Police detained more than 4,300 people on Sunday at protests across Russia against President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, according to an independent protest monitoring group.

Thousands of protesters chanted 'No to war!' and 'Shame on you!', according to videos posted on social media by opposition activists and bloggers.

Dozens of protesters in the Ural city of Yekaterinburg were seen detained. A protester there was seen beaten on the ground by police in riot gear. Meanwhile, a mural in the city showed President Vladimir Putin was vandalized.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the footage and photos on social media. Russia's Interior Ministry said earlier that police had detained about 3,500 people, including 1,700 in Moscow, 750 in St Petersburg, and 1,061 in other cities.

The Interior Ministry said 5,200 people had taken part in the protests. The protest monitoring group OVD-Info said it had documented the detention of at least 4,366 people in 56 different cities.

"The screws are being fully tightened. Basically, we are witnessing military censorship", Maria Kuznetsova, spokeswoman for OVD-Info, said by telephone from Tbilisi.

"We are seeing quite large protests today, even in Siberian cities where we rarely see such several arrests."

Illustration of anti-Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Wikimedia Commons/Michal Louč)

The last Russian protest with the same number of arrests occurred in January 2021, when thousands of people demanded the release of opposition leader Alexei Navalny after he was arrested on his return from Germany where he was recovering from nerve poisoning.

Navalny himself had called for protests on Sunday across Russia and around the world against the invasion.

Meanwhile, some Russian state-controlled media ran brief reports on Sunday's protests, but they did not feature high-profile news bulletins.

Russia's RIA news agency said Moscow's Manezhnaya Square, which is adjacent to the Kremlin, had been 'liberated' by police, who had arrested several participants in an unauthorized protest against military operations in Ukraine.

The RIA also showed footage of what appear to be Kremlin supporters driving along the embankment in Moscow, with the Russian flag and displaying the 'Z' and 'V' markings used by Russian forces on tanks operating in Ukraine.

About 2,000 people attended an anti-war protest in Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, according to videos posted on social media. Reuters was unable to independently verify the post.

The crowd chanted slogans such as 'No to war!' and obscenities directed at President Putin while waving the Ukrainian flag.

Blue and yellow balloons were placed in the hands of a statue of Lenin that soared over the small square where the rally was taking place.

Russia's state pollster VTsIOM said President Putin's approval rating had increased 6 percentage points to 70 percent in the week of February 27. The FOM, which provides research for the Kremlin, said its rating had increased 7 percentage points to 71 percent over the same period.

President Vladimir Putin, Russia's supreme leader since 1999, has called the February 24 invasion a "special military operation". He said it was aimed at defending Ukraine's Russian-speaking community from persecution, preventing the United States from using Ukraine to threaten Russia.

Separately, the West has called its arguments a baseless pretext for war and imposed sanctions aimed at crippling Russia's economy. The United States, Britain, and several other NATO members have supplied weapons to Ukraine.