On Friday, hundreds of demonstrators—many of them were Russian expatriates—gathered in cities throughout Europe and abroad to voice their outrage over the passing of Alexei Navalny, a critic of the Kremlin.
They frequently gathered outside Russian embassies, brandishing signs labeling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “killer” and demanding responsibility, while chanting anti-Kremlin chants.
After going for a walk in the Arctic jail colony, where he was serving a three-decade term, Putin’s most formidable domestic opponent, Navalny, passed away on Friday, according to prison authorities.
According to police estimates, a group of 500–600 individuals gathered on Berlin’s Unter den Linden street and began chanting in English, German, and Russian.
“Putin to the Hague,” a reference to the international criminal court looking into potential war crimes in Ukraine, was chanted by several. The road between the gathering and the Russian embassy was blocked by police using obstacles.
A Russian guy wearing an anti-war blue-and-white flag remarked, “Alexei Navalny is the leader of the Russian opposition and we always kept hope in his name,” going by only Ilia.
Protesters set flowers and candles next to a portrait of Navalny in Lithuania, a country that was once ruled from Moscow but is now a part of NATO and the EU and is home to a sizable emigrant population.
Lyusya Shtein, 26, a Pussy Riot activist who has lived in Vilnius since fleeing Russia in 2022, said, “He was always with us, so it is all surreal.” “At this point, none of us know what happened.”
Prosecutors in Russia cautioned their citizens against taking part in any large-scale demonstration in Moscow. In the shadow of the former KGB headquarters, police observed a group of Russians who had come to leave roses and carnations at a monument honoring those who had suffered under Soviet repression.
The human rights organization OVD-Info, which documents Russia’s freedom of assembly, reported that over a hundred individuals had been arrested during memorial events for Navalny. Reuters was unable to confirm the report right away. Along with other locations, groups met in Rome, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Sofia, Geneva, and The Hague.
While hundreds of people in Lisbon observed a silent vigil, more than 100 demonstrators held signs denouncing Vladimir Putin as a war criminal outside Russia’s embassy in London. A 28-year-old Russian resident in Portugal named Pavel Elizarov described Navalny as “a symbol of freedom and hope.” About a hundred protestors gathered near the Russian embassy in Paris, where Natalia Morozov claimed Navalny had also been a symbol of hope for her.
“I find it difficult to communicate my feelings because I’m so shaken,” Morozov stated. “At this point, we have lost all hope for the stunning Russia of the future.”
If Navalny’s death is verified, it deprives the disparate anti-Putin factions of a leader and a clear contender to galvanize the grievances of the public into large-scale demonstrations.
Yulia, Navalny’s wife, was in Munich on Friday, where there was also a vigil. Because “Putin and his government… lie incessantly,” she claimed at the Munich Security Conference, she could not be certain that her husband had died. However, if it were proven, she wanted them to know that “they will bear responsibility.”
At a vigil outside the Russian consulate in New York City, Violetta Soboleva announced that she had volunteered for Navalny’s 2017 presidential campaign on the opposite side of the Atlantic. The Russian PhD candidate Soboleva stated, “I really believed that he’s the one and he can lead Russia to a better future” in New York. “And now this future is lost forever for us.”
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