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Russia began cracking down on opposition to the Ukraine invasion Thursday, arresting more than a thousand anti-war protesters who showed out in several Russian cities.
More than 1,700 people have been arrested across Russia in connection to anti-war demonstrations, according to OVD Info, an independent organization monitoring political persecutions. Video shared online showed large swathes of protesters in Moscow and the historic capital of St. Petersburg.
Crowds chanting “No War” were seen marching through central Moscow.
RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE: LIVE UPDATES
Among those being taking into custody was Marina Litvinovich, a Moscow-based opposition activist who had taken to social media to call for anti-war protests in several Russian cities, Reuters reported.
She told the outlet that she was detained while she was on the way back to her home.
Newsweek reported that protesters also took to the streets of the city of Kaliningrad on the Baltic coast sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, as well as on the eastern edge of the country in Vladivostok, a major Pacific port city overlooking Golden Horn Bay, near Russia’s borders with China and North Korea.
The Russian interior minister stressed that “all necessary measures will be taken to insure public order.”
The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, the government agency tasked with investigating major crimes, also warned those who participated in any protests amid “the tense foreign political situation” would face prosecution or be held criminally liable.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “has much larger ambitions in Ukraine,” President Biden said Thursday, announcing new sanctions against Russia. “He wants to, in fact, reestablish the former Soviet Union.”
“This was never about a genuine security concern,” Biden said. “It was always about naked aggression, about Putin’s desire for empire.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Health Minister Oleh Lyashko said at least 57 people had been killed and 169 wounded during the invasion continuing Thursday. The Pentagon said 7,000 U.S. troops will be deploying to Germany in the coming days. The first U.S. troops arrived in Latvia on Thursday morning to show American commitment to Allies and bolster NATO’s eastern flank.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Thursday he would freeze all assets at Russian banks, effectively cutting them out of the U.K. economy, the largest in Europe. Ant-Russian protests were seen in several Western European cities, including London, Dublin and Edinburgh, Paris and Berlin.
