A man wearing a Ukrainian national flag gestures in front of police officers during the anti-war rally in Moscow.

DPA/Reuters/Moscow

Tens of thousands of Russians protested yesterday against the war in Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin, chanting “No to war” and “Putin, thief” as they marched in central Moscow.

The demonstrators waved Ukrainian and Russian flags as they thronged the Boulevard Ring and Sakharavov Prospekt, a central thoroughfare.

Participants also yelled “Glory to Ukraine” and sang a song popular with pro-democracy protesters in Kiev.

One socialist-nationalist group chanted “Novorossia sucks”, a reference to the historic region in eastern and southern Ukraine that the separatists want to unite with Russia.

Marchers also carried photos of Russian soldiers killed in the conflict, which broke out after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in March.

One carried a banner reading “Bring our army back from holiday” in a reference to claims by the separatists that Russian soldiers fighting with them were doing so voluntarily on their holidays.

Opposition leaders said up to 100,000 people took part in the march, which would make it one of the biggest since Putin returned to office as president in 2012.

However, the independent Sonar observer group said it counted 26,000 participants at metal detectors at the entry to the march.

Police put the figure at 5,000 and claimed it included supporters of the pro-Russian separatists.

Protesters often accuse police of underestimating the size of anti-Kremlin rallies, and opposition protests also get limited coverage on state TV.

“Putin means war, he is the leader of the party of war,” one of the organisers and prominent Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov said by phone. “If there are many of us today, he will back down, because ... he is afraid of his own citizens, and only the Russian people can stop Putin.”

“The message of this march is to call on our authorities to stop this outrageous covert war that they don’t admit (waging),” said Yelena Volkova, a protester in her 50s wearing a Ukraine flag above a traditional Ukrainian shirt, or “vyshyvanka”.

“Russia should withdraw its mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine, and then everything will be fine,” said a man in his 40s who only gave his first name, Gennady. He held two blue and yellow balloons, the colours of Ukraine’s flag.

A DPA reporter saw a handful of separatist supporters lining the route of the march, some of them shouting “Traitors” and other abuse at the protesters.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin expressed his support for the protesters.

“Each is a drop in the ocean,” he said on Twitter. “Together, we will bring back peace.”

Smaller protests were held in other Russian cities.

In Saint Petersburg, a peace march drew hundreds of participants in the city centre, local media reported.

Police detained six protesters on minor charges, three of whom were supporters of the separatists, the fontanka.ru news site reported.

 

 

 

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