Russian protests in pictures: 'I don’t want to die for Putin!'

More than 1,300 people were arrested in a single day in Russia for protesting the war after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a ‘partial mobilization’ to increase the number of troops in Ukraine, according to Russian human rights groups OVD-Info.

CNN cites OVD-Info’s report of protests in at least 38 Russian cities, including major urban centers such as Moscow and St. Petersburg.

OVD-Info highlights that at least 500 people have been arrested in Moscow, with a similar number in St. Petersburg.

The New York Times writes that in Moscow demonstrators gathered in the Old Arbat, a well-known pedestrian street in the Russian capital.

Meanwhile, CNN reports that the government curtailed a crowd of protestors in front of St. Petersburg’s Saint Isaac Cathedral chanting “No mobilization”.

According to The New York Times, a man from Novosibirsk was taken away by police officers after yelling at them: “I don’t want to die for Putin and for you.”

The Guardian points out that unsanctioned rallies are illegal in Russia, giving local authorities the perfect excuse to break up these demonstrations.

The New York Times cites OVD-Info’s claim that around 16,500 people had been detained for protesting the war in Ukraine since the conflict began in February 2022.

Pictured: A protester detained in front of the Kremlin in March 2022.

Since March, disseminating “false information” about the war or that “discredits the Russian army” is also considered a criminal offense.

Russia’s General Prosecutor Office, the New York Times writes, has stated that protesters could get up to 15 years in prison.

Not only that, an OVD-Info spokeswoman told CNN that some protesters were being directly drafted into the Russian military in at least four police stations in Moscow.

BBC reported that a partial mobilization would mean that some 300,000 military reservists, but not conscripts, would go to Ukraine and bolster Russia’s faltering military.

Around the same time, territories occupied by Russian troops will hold a referendum on whether they wanted to be annexed by the Moscow government. Most of the international community has put into question the legality of these referendums.

CNN informs that the decree not only applies to the military reserves. It calls up all the “citizens of the Russian Federation for military service by mobilization into the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.”

The response by the Russian government has been swift. A statement from the Ministry of Interior, quoted by The Guardian, declared that small groups of protests had been stopped.

However, with Western news outlets reporting Russian citizens fleeing the country after the call for mobilization, it’s hard to say how much of a grip the Kremlin has on the situation.