Russia Russian opposition in exile protests against Putin worldwide

Russian exiles took to the streets around the world at the weekend to protest against the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine and against President Vladimir Putin. Dozens also protested in Zurich and Geneva.

Prominent representatives of the Russian opposition in exile, including Yulia Navalnaya, Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Mursa, had called for the large march in Berlin with over 1000 participants.

The three most important Russian opposition figures urged the participants of the march in the German capital not to let up in their fight against Putin. Yashin greeted the protesters with shouts of "No to war" and "Down with Putin" to great cheers.

The demonstration, led by Navalnaya, Kara-Mursa and Yashin, started in the afternoon at Potsdamer Platz and led along Friedrichstrasse to the Russian embassy on Unter den Linden. The reason for the march was the 1000th day after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

The Berlin police gave the number of participants as around 1500. At the beginning of the demonstration, the organizers spoke of 1500 to 2000 participants. The size of the protest was seen as an indicator of the political influence of Kremlin critics abroad. Especially as Berlin has one of the largest Russian exile communities in the world, with an estimated 200,000 inhabitants of Russian descent.

The prominent Putin critics hoped that the demonstration would give new impetus to the fragmented Russian opposition in exile. The aim was to "unite all those who oppose Vladimir Putin's aggressive and criminal policies - against the war in Ukraine and against political repression within Russia", the organizers explained in advance.

"Hands off Ukraine!"

"Russia, that's us", Yashin then shouted at the protest march to the cheers of the participants and "Hands off Ukraine!". Slogans at the demonstration included "Freedom for Russia", "We are not afraid" and "Together against Putin". Many participants carried signs reading "Putin must stand trial" and "We stand with Ukraine".

Yelena Gajeva from the Demokratija association, which co-organized the event, reminded the participants that Russian civil society is growing "from within". She described support for Ukraine as "our most moral duty". "Our path to a free and democratic Russia is to help Ukraine," she said.

The participants' demands included the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine, the impeachment of Putin and charges against him as a war criminal. Thousands of critics of Kremlin policy are in prison in Russia.

New hope after Navalny's death

The death of prominent opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was allegedly murdered by the Putin regime in a Russian prison camp in the Arctic in February, dealt a severe blow to Russian dissidents. His widow is now continuing the resistance against Putin from exile in Germany.

However, the release of Yashin and Kara-Mursa, among others, at the beginning of August in a prisoner exchange between Moscow and the West also gave the community of exiled Russians and Putin opponents new hope.

At the end of the rally in Berlin, all three opposition leaders addressed the protesters as one. Navalnaya appealed to the exiled Russians to continue fighting "against the Putin regime" and against the war "that Putin has unleashed on Ukraine", even if this is difficult.

Condemnation of Putin as a war criminal

The dissident Kara-Mursa, who was close to Navalny, called for Putin to be condemned as a "war criminal". "We demand that not only Putin himself, but all his accomplices, the war criminals who have seized power in our country, be brought to justice," he said.

The last major demonstrations by Kremlin critics in Russia to date were spontaneous; in March 2024, for example, thousands took part in the funeral service for Navalny in Moscow despite the repression in Russia.

On the 1000th day after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on President Putin's orders, around a hundred protest events took place around the world - from Australia and Japan in the east, across Europe and South America, to the USA and Canada.

SDA