Exiled Russian opposition figures call for anti-war protest in Berlin

Exiled Russian opposition political activists have called for a demonstration in Berlin on November 17 against Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine ordered by President Vladimir Putin.

“We must show ourselves and the whole world that there is an anti-militarist and free Russia,” Putin opponent Yulia Navalnaya said in a video distributed via social networks.

Navalnaya was joined by the two well-known Kremlin critics, Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza.

The three opposition leaders announced that the march in Berlin would demand Putin’s resignation, the withdrawal of Russian soldiers from Ukraine and the release of all political prisoners in Russia.

Ukraine has been resisting an all-out Russian invasion for more than two and a half years with Western support. A smaller-scale Russian-backed conflict has been ongoing since 2014, when Russian forces also occupied the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.

Yashin and Kara-Murza were sentenced to long prison terms in Russia for their anti-war stance and were deported from their home country as part of a prisoner exchange in August.

Navalnaya’s late husband, Alexei Navalny, also a harsh critic of Putin’s regime, died in a Russian prison camp in February under unexplained circumstances.

(dpa)