Fri 11 March 2022:
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny has called for anti-war protests to be held in Russia’s capital, Moscow, and other cities across the country on Sunday.
“Mad maniac Putin will most quickly be stopped by the people of Russia now if they oppose the war,” Navalny said in a message posted on his Instagram account.
“You need to go to anti-war rallies every weekend, even if it seems that everyone has either left or got scared…You are the backbone of the movement against war and death,” he added.
More than 13,900 people have been arrested for taking part in a string of anti-war demonstrations held in dozens of cities throughout Russia since it began its offensive, according to protest monitoring group OVD-Info.
Similar protests were also called last week by Navalny, whose media-savvy team got the word out on social media, internet advertisements and his blog.
“Not Russia attacked Ukraine, but Putin,” Navalny’s blog read, referring to Russia’s longtime leader Vladimir Putin.
“It was Putin who wanted to bomb peaceful cities, kill children and destroy lives. The Russians were not asked if they wanted war. In Russia, which we love and are proud of, millions of people are against this madness. And now their help is needed more than ever,” he said.
“You may be scared, but to succumb to this fear means to take the side of the fascists and murderers … Don’t give in to fear, take to the streets, let the whole world see that Putin is not Russia,” Navalny added.
This tactic is not new, Ruslan Shaveddinov, project manager of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), told Al Jazeera.
“We use all means of communication with society available to us to motivate and call them to take to the streets, because there is no other way to protest the authorities in our country under [Russian President Vladimir] Putin. We have been using advertising on social networks all these years, informing about rallies,” he said.
“Our websites are regularly blocked, we’re pressed with criminal charges, and all other instruments of repression,” Shaveddinov added. “We’ve learned to work in these conditions, keeping our employees as safe as it is possible.”
A poll carried out by Navalny’s team asked 700 Muscovites what they thought about current events. It found that between February 25 and March 3, the number of those blaming the West for the war halved, while those blaming Russia more than doubled.
Meanwhile, more than half believed Russia’s economy was on the verge of collapse, and a vast majority wanted to cease all hostilities and all parties to take a seat at the negotiating table.
Other surveys are less optimistic.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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