BISHKEK -- Police in Bishkek have fined four Russian citizens after they marked the first anniversary of Moscow's ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by honoring victims of the conflict on February 24.
In all, five Russian citizens were detained at Bishkek's Emen Bagy Park (The Oak Park) where they laid flowers and blue-and-yellow bands symbolizing Ukraine's national flag earlier in the day. They were later released but ordered to pay fines. Two others who also commemorated the invasion's victims were not detained as they had children with them.
Lawyer Janysh Barakov told RFE/RL that the four men and women who moved to Kyrgyzstan last year after Russia launched its full-scale aggression against Ukraine, were fined 5500 soms ($63) each on a charge of residing at addresses other than shown in their registration papers. Barakov said the police decision was incorrect and the fines will be appealed.
One of the detained and then fined Russian nationals, who introduced herself as Yulia, told RFE/RL that initially police said they all would face a charge of inciting ethnic hatred, which carries a prison term for those found guilty of the offense.
"The lawyer's participation helped us; otherwise we would be now in a pretrial detention center," said Yulia, who did not give her last name fearing repercussions.
Police have not issued an official statement on the situation.
In the capital of neighboring Kazakhstan, police detained the leader of the local branch of Kazakhstan's Bureau of Human Rights, Artur Alkhastov, who planned to picket the Russian Embassy to mark the first anniversary of the war.
People hold up Kazakh and Ukrainian flags in Almaty on February 24.
Alkhastov says he officially asked Astana city authorities to allow him to hold the picket but did not receive an answer. It is not clear on what charge he was detained.
In Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, dozens of activists, local residents, and Russian citizens who fled Russia for Kazakhstan after the invasion was launched, gathered at the monument of prominent Ukrainian poet and thinker Taras Shevchenko in the city center to lay flowers to commemorate the victims of Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine.
Because Almaty city administration did not officially permit a public gathering to commemorate the war victims, people came to the monument individually.
Police units with dozens of vehicles monitored the proceedings but did not interfere.
Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have neither officially condemned nor supported Russia's decision to attack Ukraine.
The two Central Asian nations, along with several other former Soviet republics, are members of Russia's led Eurasian Economic Union and the Collective Security Treaty Organization.