Heartbreaking pictures appear to show young Russian kids arrested for protesting against their country’s invasion of Ukraine. The photos were shared by an opposition politician after thousands across the country were detained for voicing opposition to Vladimir Putin’s war.
The pictures show children of school age in the back of a police van in Moscow after taking part in anti-war protests. The kids were held when they reportedly went to lay flowers at the city’s Ukrainian embassy.
Kids help ‘no war’ signs in Russian
A girl wearing a green hat holds a sign saying ‘No War’ in Russian with small Russian and Ukrainian flags painted around the words. Another girl in a pink puffer jacket carries flowers and she was pictured later in a police station, with an officer behind her at a computer.
The pictures were shared by Ilya Yashin on Twitter, who wrote: “Nothing out of the ordinary: just kids in paddy wagons behind an anti-war poster. “This is Putin’s Russia, folks. You live here.”
Despite Putin’s ruthless quashing of any dissent against his regime, thousands of anti-war protesters have taken to the streets across Russia.
1 million signed a petition demanding an end to war
Nearly 1 million people signed an online petition demanding an end to the war. Anti-war demonstrators in Russia have faced mass detentions while authorities have restricted access to social media and threatened to shut down independent news sites.
On Monday, the OVD-Info rights group that tracks political arrests counted at least 350 detentions of protesters in 13 Russian cities. Over the past five days of protests, more than 6,000 people have been detained, according to OVD-Info.
One demonstrator scrawled ‘Adolf Putin’ on the wall of an underground station in Saint Petersburg, the Russian President’s hometown.
Global unity against Moscow at display
Meanwhile, in a poignant show of global unity against Moscow to protest against the war, diplomats walked out at a United Nations meeting in Geneva during a speech by Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. Dozens of officials, including those from Britain, the US and the EU left the 49th session of the Human Rights Council.
Meanwhile, The Hague is investigating Russia for “war crimes and crimes against humanity” after they cluster-bombed a nursery school.