At the same time as the national day is celebrated with pomp and splendor in Moscow, Petr Vasilev (38) and other Russians all over the world take to the streets to demonstrate against the war.
Less than 20 minutes ago
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On Sunday morning, a small crowd gathered at Eidsvolls plass outside the Storting.
Passionate appeals are being made in Russian, but several of those present are waving a flag that is not immediately recognizable – it is white with a large blue stripe in the middle.
– The usual tricolor is so closely linked to the war. To protest, we have rather removed the red, and made a flag without blood. It is a symbol that is also used in the rest of Europe, says Petr Vasilev to VG.
During the day, similar demonstrations were announced in Bergen, Ålesund and Kirkenes, as well as in more than 60 other cities around the world.
–The timing is not random. June 12 is the day Russia celebrates Constitution Day.
In Moscow, the day was marked with fireworks. President Vladimir Putin also held a ceremony in the Kremlin where he presented prizes to a number of scholars and cultural figures, writes Bloomberg.
Vasilev, who came to Norway in 2007 because of his job, would rather use the opportunity to show that there are also Russians who oppose the war:
“Those who live in Russia are imprisoned or fined if they make negative statements about the war, so I feel an extra responsibility to show them that they are not alone,” he says.
Many arrested in Russia
Freedom of expression and information has long been under pressure in Russia, especially over the last ten years. The war in Ukraine has also led to a number of new austerity measures.
In March, among other things, the Russian Duma approved a controversial bill which gives up to 15 years in prison for spreading “deliberately false information” about the war.
– There are some of my friends who went out in the anti-war demonstrations in Russia. Most of them managed to escape from the police, says Vasilev.
According to the human rights organization OVD-info, more than 15,000 Russians have been arrested in connection with demonstrations against the war in Ukraine. 5,700 of these were in one day.
The state-run Russian media regularly refers to the protests as “Illegal uprisings” against Russia’s “special military operation”.
–Evgeniya Khoroltseva is chair of the human rights organization “Smårådina: scared democracy in Russia”, which organized the demonstration outside the Storting on Sunday.
She believes many are leading a silent protest in Russia, even though it is not allowed to do so openly on the streets:
– The characters are becoming more and more complex for them to be read. For example, people wear jewelry and shoelaces in the colors of the Ukrainian flag, she says.
She is particularly skeptical that the Russian state has strong control over the media in the country:
– There is a lot of information that is put on the lid. We believe that the people of Russia are not stupid. They are entitled to information, she says.
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