Moscow: As Russian troops were closing in on the Ukrainian capital, more and more Russians spoke out against the invasion, even as the government's official rhetoric grew increasingly harsher.
Street protests, albeit small, resumed in the Russian capital of Moscow, the second-largest city of St. Petersburg and other Russian cities for the third straight day on Saturday, with people taking to the streets despite mass detentions on Thursday and Friday. According to OVD-Info, rights group that tracks political arrests, at least 460 people in 34 cities were detained over anti-war protests on Saturday, including over 200 in Moscow.
Open letters condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine kept pouring, too. More than 6,000 medical workers put their names under one on Saturday; over 3,400 architects and engineers endorsed another while 500 teachers signed a third one. Similar letters by journalists, municipal council members, cultural figures and other professional groups have been making the rounds since Thursday.
A prominent contemporary art museum in Moscow called Garage announced on Saturday that it was halting its work on exhibitions and postponing them "until the human and political tragedy that is unfolding in Ukraine has ceased."
"We cannot support the illusion of normality when such events are taking place," the statement by the museum read. "We see ourselves as part of a wider world that is not divided by war."
An online petition to stop the attack on Ukraine, launched shortly after it started on Thursday morning, garnered over 7,80,000 signatures by Saturday evening, making it one of the most supported online petitions in Russia in recent years.
Statements decrying the invasion even came from some parliament members, who earlier this week voted to recognise the independence of two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, a move that preceded the Russian assault. Two lawmakers from the Communist Party, which usually toes the Kremlin's line, spoke out against the hostilities on social media. Oleg Smolin said he "was shocked" when the attack started and "was convinced that military force should be used in politics only as a last resort." His fellow lawmaker Mikhail Matveyev said "the war must be immediately stopped" and that he voted for "Russia becoming a shield against the bombing of Donbas, not for the
bombing of Kyiv."