At least 1,728 people were detained Thursday after anti-war protests took place in cities across Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, according to a protest monitoring group.
Protesters took to the streets in 53 cities — including Moscow, St. Petersburg and the far eastern Siberian city of Novosibirsk — to show their discontent with the Kremlin’s war, according to OVD-Info, a civil society group whose website was blocked by Moscow in 2021 amid a wider crackdown on dissenting voices.
Videos on social media showed protests of varying sizes on Thursday afternoon and evening, ranging from hundreds of people in St. Petersburg and Moscow to a handful in smaller cities like Chelyabinsk in central Russia.
In Moscow, where more than 900 people were allegedly detained, footage posted online showed heavily armed police filling the streets.
“Many Russians are horrified,” said Paul Stronski, a senior fellow at the Carnegie research institute and specialist on Russia, while adding that more comprehensive public opinion polling was needed.
“It’s an indication they don’t want war — yet, given the level of authoritarianism in Russia, those protesters are brave people,” he said.
Still, Vladimir Putin’s approval rating rose in recent months to 69 percent, while negative attitudes in Russia toward Ukraine surpassed positive attitudes in February for the first time in six months, according to independent pollster Levada Center.
Russian forces moved in on Kyiv from two sides Thursday afternoon as fighting raged across Ukraine, after Putin declared war on the country by announcing a “special military operation” in the early hours of the morning and vowed a “demilitarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine.”