FILE PHOTO: Law enforcement officers escort an elderly artist and activist, Yelena Osipova, during an anti-war protest against Russia鈥檚 invasion of Ukraine, in Saint Petersburg, Russia March 2, 2022. (REUTERS/Stringer)
LONDON 鈥� More than 3,500 people were detained at protests across Russia on Sunday against President Vladimir Putin鈥檚 invasion of Ukraine, according to data provided by the interior ministry.
Thousands of protesters chanted 鈥淣o to war!鈥� and 鈥淪hame on you!鈥�, according to videos posted on social media by opposition activists and bloggers.
Dozens of protesters in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg were shown being detained. One protester there was shown being beaten on the ground by police in riot gear. A mural in the city showing President Vladimir Putin was defaced.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the footage and photographs on social media. Russia鈥檚 interior ministry said 1,700 people had been detained 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 said it had documented the detention of at least 2,578 people in 49 different cities.
鈥淭he screws are being fully tightened 鈥� essentially we are witnessing military censorship,鈥� Maria Kuznetsova, OVD-Info鈥檚 spokeswoman, said by telephone from Tbilisi.
鈥淲e are seeing rather big protests today, even in Siberian cities where we only rarely saw such numbers of arrests.鈥�
The last Russian protests with a similar number of arrests were in January 2021, when thousands demanded the release of opposition leader Alexei Navalny after he was arrested on returning from Germany where he had been recovering from a nerve agent poisoning.
Some Russian state-controlled media carried short reports about Sunday鈥檚 protests but they did not feature high in news bulletins.
Russia鈥檚 RIA news agency said the Manezhnaya Square in Moscow, adjoining the Kremlin, had been 鈥渓iberated鈥� by police, who had arrested some participants of an unsanctioned protest against the military operation in Ukraine.
Church support
RIA also showed footage of what appeared to be supporters of the Kremlin driving along the embankment in Moscow with Russian flags and displaying the 鈥淶鈥� and 鈥淰鈥� markings used by Russian forces on tanks operating in Ukraine.
Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, said Russian values were being tested by the West, which offered only excessive consumption and the illusion of freedom.
Putin, Russia鈥檚 paramount leader since 1999, calls the invasion, launched on Feb. 24, a 鈥渟pecial military operation鈥�. He says it is aimed at defending Ukraine鈥檚 Russian-speaking communities against persecution and preventing the United States from using Ukraine to threaten Russia.
The West has called his arguments a baseless pretext for war and imposed sanctions that aim to cripple the Russian economy. The United States, Britain, and some other NATO members have supplied arms to Ukraine.
Navalny had called for protests on Sunday across Russia and the rest of the world against the invasion.
About 2,000 people attended an anti-war protest in Kazakhstan鈥檚 biggest city Almaty, according to videos posted on social media. Reuters was unable to independently verify the posts.
The crowd shouted slogans such as 鈥淣o to war!鈥� and obscenities directed at Putin while waving Ukrainian flags.
Blue and yellow balloons were placed in the hand of a statue of Lenin towering over the small square where the rally took place.
The Russian state polling agency VTsIOM said Putin鈥檚 approval rating had risen 6 percentage points to 70% in the week to Feb. 27. FOM, which provides research for the Kremlin, said his rating had risen 7 percentage points to 71% in the same period.
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