(Reuters) – Protesters turned out on public squares and out of doors Russian embassies in cities from Tokyo to Tel Aviv and New York on Thursday to denounce the invasion of Ukraine — whereas greater than a thousand who tried to do the identical in Russia have been arrested.
The earliest identified protest occurred exterior Russia’s embassy in Washington round 1 a.m. EST (0600 GMT) on Thursday, solely three hours after President Vladimir Putin stated he had launched his army operation.
Local information stories confirmed dozens of protesters within the U.S. capital waving Ukrainian flags and chanting “Stop Russian aggression!”
In London, a whole lot of demonstrators, many of them Ukrainian and a few weeping, gathered exterior Downing Street, house to the prime minister, urging Britain to do extra.
“We need assistance, we want somebody to help us,” stated one. “Ukraine is simply too small and the stress is simply too huge.”
In Paris, one demonstrator informed Reuters: “I really feel that we’re in a really harmful second for the entire world.”
In Madrid, Oscar-winning Spanish actor Javier Bardem, nominated for an additional Academy Award this yr, joined a couple of hundred protesters exterior the Russian embassy.
“It is an invasion. … It violates Ukraine’s elementary proper to territorial sovereignty, worldwide legislation, and plenty of different issues,” Bardem stated.
A large flag was carried by Manhattan’s Times Square by a crowd of a number of hundred protesters.
In the Swiss capital Bern, a whole lot gathered, holding Ukrainian flags and chanting “Peace for Ukraine!”.
Agapi Tamir, 28, one of just a few dozen members of Greece’s Ukrainian group who staged a protest in Athens, stated:
“The solely factor we consider is {that a} miracle will cease all this terrible and scary factor that’s occurring at this second.”
A small demonstration in Geneva, organised by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) exterior the U.N. European headquarters, condemned what the group stated was Putin’s risk to use nuclear weapons.
Other demonstrations have been held in Beirut, Tel Aviv, Dublin and Prague.
Also in Dublin, a Russian double-eagle crest beside the gate of the Russian embassy was defaced with purple paint.
More protests have been scheduled for later within the day within the U.S. cities of Houston and Denver, in accordance to social media posts.
In Russia itself, protesters defied an official warning that explicitly threatened prison prosecution and even jail time for these calling for or participating in protests.
Hundreds rallied in cities together with Moscow, St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, chanting slogans akin to “No to struggle!” and holding up makeshift indicators.
By 1939 GMT, police had detained no fewer than 1,667 individuals in 53 cities, the OVD-Info rights monitor stated. Six hundred have been arrested in Moscow alone, the Tass information company reported.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaux around the globe; Writing by Kevin Liffey)
