“Fight poverty, not Ukraine” – digest of Russian protests

Anti-war protests continue in Russia: 

• During the concert in Ufa Yuri Shevchuk announced: "Our Motherland, dear friends, is not the president’s ass that we kiss. It’s a destitute old women, selling potatoes at the railway station”. The hall applauded.  Shevchuk was charged with “discrediting the Russian army”. 
• Vladimir Feofanov, a businessman, was playing the piano version of the Ukrainian hymn on the embankment in Tyumen’. He was arrested for 14 days.
• An inscription saying “It's a celebration with tear’s upon our eyes. Bucha. Irpen’. Mariupol.” 
  Photo taken from Telegram channel "Движение «Весна»"
• Polina Zaitseva, an activist from Saint-Petersburg, held a protest: dressed in Slavonic dress, she painted white flowers red. She was fined 2 minimal wages. 
  Photo taken from Telegram channel "Феминистское Антивоенное Сопротивление"
• Graffiti citing Viktor Tsoi’s song appeared in Saint-Petersburg “A no-reason war”.
• Activists secretly distribute stickers with links to web-sites posting information about draft-evasion and civil protest. 
• Stickers citing A. Solzhenitsyn were noticed:  “The government which was brave when arresting people, was ashamed to acknowledge it. And the human heart which was not redy to accept the irreversible, started making up lies”.
• During Kiss-Kiss’s show in Saint-Petersburg people chanted “Fuck war”.
• In Dagestan a schoolgirl finished her graduation speech with phrases : “No to War! Free Ukraine! Putin is a devil”. She was forced to publicly apologize for this.
• A booth “World without war” appeared in a park where the national Chuvash celebration was held.
• In Murmansk the following stickers were noticed: “No to the War - no to Putin”, “Human life is above all”, “Fight poverty, not Ukraine”.
• In Saint-Petersburg the following stickers were glued: “Leningrad does not ZZieg heil”, “How many conscripts died on Russian cruiser “Moskva”, “Does our government tell us truth? Why are all independent media banned?” 
  Photo taken from Telegram channel "Видимый протест"
• Stickers in Essentuki: “How many deaths do you need to understand that the war is Zevil”, “Is it brave to shot people tying their hands first?”, “You’ve done it again, haven’t you?”
• Anti-war leaflets in Krasnodar: “You were taught at school that war is bad. You have forgotten everything”, “War is not courtesy but the most horrible thing in life (c) L.N. Tolstoy”, “War is a special operation; freedom is treason; ignorance is patriotism”, “If my great-grandfather had found out that Russia would unleash a war against Ukraine and new swastikas would be stuck on along the streets, he would have shot himself.” 
  Photo taken from Telegram channel "Видимый протест"
• The graffiti on the walls in Balashikha: "Sing louder than the bombs", "Wake up the country, you are all stained with blood.”
• At the Donskoye cemetery in Moscow, the sign “The soldier’s grave is the main preacher of peace” appeared on the memorial to the soldiers of the World War II.
• Other signs and graffiti: “You think – not in my backyard, but your backyard is the next”, “I’m so ashamed of you, grandchildren! We fought for peace, but you chose war”, “The Soviet people celebrated the coming of peace”, “We have no right to pretend that we are deaf and blind”, “***. Work. May”, “I have an aunt in Kyiv, I am afraid for her”, “Soldiers rape girls and women. Stop the war!”, “How did the destruction of Mariupol help the children of Donbass?”, “Yes, America also unleashed wars. Do we really want to take our cue from the worst?”, “Russian bombs destroy peaceful cities”, “Parade stained with blood”, “Article 353* of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. To the responsibility of Putin according to our laws” (* - “Planning, Preparing, Unleashing, or Waging on Aggressive War”), “Nothing can justify a war.” 
  Photo taken from Telegram channel «Феминистское Антивоенное Сопротивление»

 Pressure:

• In more than 30 cities, anti-war actions, graffiti and social media comments resulted in fines for activists, but in some cases protesters were arrested or ordered to do community service. Fines range from 10 to 50 thousand rubles. And it is reported about 20 hours of court-ordered community service and arrests for up to 8 days.
•  A criminal case was opened against Conflict Intelligence Team analyst Ruslan Leviev and journalist Michael Naki. The case was initiated under the law on "fakes" about the Russian army "with a help of the artificial creation of evidence for the prosecution." They publish analytics on military operations in Ukraine.
•  Roskomnadzor blocked access to another 34 resources at the request of the Prosecutor General's Office. In the vast majority of cases, it concerns coverage of events / expressing opinions about the situation in Ukraine.
• In Moscow, the police disrupted a concert of anti-fascist punk bands ‘Criminal State’ and ‘The Dead President’. According to some anonymous Telegram channels closely connected to the Russian security leaders, the reason was the band members’ anti-war views. ‘Before the concert even started, about 50 masked policemen rushed in and blocked the exit. They released us one by one, having taken photos of our passports, some people were searched’, one of the audience members said.
• A teacher in a private school ‘President’ located near Moscow was fired after drawing a parallel between Putin and Hitler during a lesson.
• Denis Grekov, Critical Thinking lecturer at the Russian Presidential Academy of the National Economy and Public Administration, was forced to resign after he published a post about ‘exhausted propaganda myth around May 9’. 
• A third-grader messaged the slogan ‘Glory to Ukraine!’ to a school chat. Another boy’s father reported him to the police and the 9-year old boy ended up in a police station. 
• In Nizhniy Tagil, an artist was charged with a fine of 2.5 minimal wages for ‘discrediting the Russian army’. She was holding a white rose with two ribbons saying ‘We Are Against The War’ in local Chuvash and Tatar languages. 

More News On Protests

 Administrative cases involving anti-war declarations and protests were either dismissed or handed back to the police in a number of Russian cities, e.g. Voronezh, Surazh, Kirov, Chita, Maikop, Pskov, Saint Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don and Murmansk. 

Military recruitment centers throughout Russia are being targeted in arson and shooting attacks.

• May 13: arson attack on a military recruitment center in Gukovo near Rostov-on-Don.
• May 14: attempted arson in Pronsk near Ryazan. 
• May 15: arson attack in Volgograd.
• May 18: arson attack in Schelkovo near Moscow.
• May 20: shooting attack on a military recruitment center near Irkutsk.
• May 21: arson attack in Igra near Irkutsk.

The review was prepared by Memorial volunteers on the basis of the the following sources: ОВД-инфо, Холод, Видимый протест and others.