BERLIN -- An estimated 1,800 exiled Russians and other opponents of President Vladimir Putin and his unprovoked war against Ukraine marched in Berlin on November 17, many holding signs stating, “No War, No Putin.”
The action comes as the opposition is struggling to maintain an influential voice after the unexplained jailhouse death of its most prominent leader, Aleksei Navalny, in February, and a decades-long clampdown that has escalated since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and driven many of Putin’s critics out of Russia.
German media cited Berlin police as estimating the crowd at 1,800 people at the beginning of the march, intended to run from Potsdamer Platz to the Brandenburg Gate.
The plan was to march to the Russian Embassy near the Brandenburg Gate, in a rally co-organized by Kremlin critics Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza, both of whom were released from Russian custody in a prisoner exchange in August.
Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, is also a co-organizer of the event.
"The march aims to unite everyone who stands against Vladimir Putin's aggressive war in Ukraine and political repressions in Russia," the organizers said in a statement.
At the event, Yashin told the crowd, "Putin is not Russia. Russia is us. And we are against the war," while march participants chanted, “Russia will be free,” and, “Freedom for political prisoners.”
The opposition says it has three main demands: the "immediate withdrawal" of troops from Ukraine, the trial of Putin as a "war criminal," and the liberation of all political prisoners in Russia.
SEE ALSO: A Blood-Red Stripe: Russian Opposition's Anti-War Rally Shadowed In Advance By Controversy Over FlagAhead of the protest, a dispute over whether the Russian flag should be unfurled at the protest erupted on social media.
The protest announcement featured images from a 2014 rally in Moscow against Russia's seizure of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. However, critics say Russia's colors have been discredited by the country's brutal war.
As the controversy emerged late last month, Yashin said that “the discussion of flags clearly obscures the essence of the action that we want to hold in Berlin.”
Ukrainian officials and others expressed skepticism ahead of the planned march.
The Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany Oleksiy Makeev criticized the event as a "walk without dignity and without consequences," adding that it illustrated the opposition's "weakness."
Writing in the Zeit newspaper, Makeev argued that the three opposition figures were not doing enough to support Kyiv and call on their fellow citizens to protest in Russia.
Likewise Vitsche, the association of Ukrainian exiles in Germany, said that the event "failed to deliver a clear message" of support.