Protesters gather in front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate during a demonstration in support of Ukraine, 24 February 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE / FILIP SINGER
Three of Russia’s most prominent opposition politicians issued a statement on Wednesday announcing plans to hold an anti-war demonstration in Berlin on 17 November.
In a joint video message, Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of late opposition leader Alexey Navalny, and Russian opposition politicians Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza, both of whom were freed from long jail sentences in an August prisoner swap with the West, urged Russians living in exile to travel to Berlin to join the anti-war demonstration.
Speaking in alternate sentences in their joint video, Navalnaya, Yashin and Kara-Murza asked viewers “to look towards a future that each one of us dreams of. A future in which Russia is a country living in peace with its neighbours. A country that is respected and not afraid, a country that guarantees freedom, justice and security to its citizens,” adding that “just one man” — Vladimir Putin — stood in the way of achieving that goal.
The three politicians also accused Putin of turning Russia “into an evil empire” and “blackmailing the world with nuclear weapons”, but added that this should not be taken as evidence that he was “stronger than ever”.
“If Putin was strong, he would not rewrite the constitution and steal elections. If he really felt the support of the people, he would not give orders to kill his political opponents. If Putin really was confident in himself, he would not have sent hundreds of people who opposed war and tyranny to prison,” they continued.
Writing on his Telegram channel later on Wednesday, Yashin said that the demonstration would “demand the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine, the trial of Vladimir Putin for war crimes, and the release of all political prisoners”.
Noting that holding protests was currently impossible in Russia, where anyone criticising the Kremlin in public would be “brutally beaten” and “imprisoned for years”, Yashin said that Russians in exile could nevertheless “still show that a peaceful, free and civilised Russia exists.”
