Watchdog

Prominent Russian human rights activist Marina Litvinovich was fined on February 25 for "an attempt to organize an unsanctioned rally in Moscow" against Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Litvinoich's lawyer Fyodor Sirosh said on February 25 that the Khamovniki district court in the Russian capital fined his client 30,000 rubles ($350). Sirosh added that he will appeal the court's ruling.

Litvinovich was detained a day earlier after she publicly called on Russians to rally in their cities against Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

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Protests against Russia's military actions against Ukraine were held in 54 towns and cities across Russia on February 24, the day when the invasion started.

Several thousand people protested on February 24 on Moscow's central Pushkin square.

Hundreds of demonstrators were arrested.

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Police Break Up Anti-War Protests Across Russia

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The Moscow City Court said on February 25 that about 200 protesters were charged with taking part in unsanctioned public events.

Meanwhile, 250 Russian scholarssigned an open letter demanding a stop to the war in Ukraine.

Hundreds of Russian journalists, singers, entertainers, writers, and other celebrities issued statements condemning the war.

The Novaya gazeta newspaper's February 25 edition was issued in both Russian and Ukrainian with the explanation that the newspaper's staff "does not consider Ukrainian the language of an enemy."

The newspaper's editor-in-chief editor, Nobel prize laureate Dmitry Muratov, wrote in an editorial that "only the anti-war movement of Russian citizens can save life on this planet."

Three correspondents from RFE/RL's Russian Service have been detained in Moscow while covering a rally against Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The journalists were arrested despite one of them telling police repeatedly that he was a representative of the press. According to a video of the arrest that one of the journalists filmed and managed to transmit, he also tells the officer to stop using physical force against him.

The nearly two-minute shaky video shows the journalist being escorted away after nightfall on Pushkinskaya Square and being placed into a police bus with more than 20 other people inside.

According to the correspondents, they were to be taken to the Kuntsevo police station.

RFE/RL President Jamie Fly said Russia, having launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine, "now seeks to deny its citizens access to any and all information that would expose the falsehoods it has used to justify the invasion."

Fly noted that the RFE/RL journalists were arrested in Moscow while covering an anti-war rally, calling it "an inconvenient challenge to the Kremlin’s narrative."

He strongly condemned the detention of the RFE/RL journalists and called for their immediate release.

There have also been reports of detentions of employees of other media outlets. The security force presence in the center of Moscow included a noticeable accumulation of special equipment and fighters of the National Guard.

The arrests occurred after about 300-700 people gathered near the monument to the writer Alexander Pushkin chanting "No to war!"

OVD-Info, a nonprofit that monitors police arrests nationwide, said more than 1,700 people were detained at anti-war protests in 53 Russian cities. More than 900 were arrested in Moscow and more than 400 in St. Petersburg, the monitor said.

The Telegram channel Baza reported that the Moscow Police received an order to suppress everything that can be considered a provocation, including the flags of Ukraine and posters with inflammatory statements.