Miniature Resistance: Russia's Anti-War Figurines

This photo, of a plum-sized Plasticine protester in front of the Kremlin, was posted to an Instagram account called malenkiy_piket (small protest) on April 2, 2022. 

An anti-war figurine outside St. Petersburg’s Finland Railway Station

The tiny protest Instagram account was launched three weeks after the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. 

Anti-war figurines in St. Petersburg

The page called for Russians who opposed the war to “make a little man with a poster from any material” and then “attach the figure anywhere." 

 

The owner of the Instagram account recently fled Russia and now lives in France. He told RFE/RL that he started the miniature protest movement because “I couldn’t do nothing.” 

A figure placed next to one of St. Petersburg's canals reminds passersby, "There’s a war. Russia is bombing Ukraine. Why are we fighting?"

 

With the Kremlin doling out life-changing prison sentences to anti-war protesters, the owner of the malenkiy_piket Instagram account told RFE/RL, “I was too afraid to do something big, so I decided to do something small, but every day.”

The protest account has amassed nearly 10,000 followers for its often poignant anti-war messages.

This placard, which would have faced commuters at a lonely Russian railway station, says: “Together we could stop this, but you only think of yourself.”

The fuse on a tiny cannon burns in Ufa.

The social media activist says he got the idea through his background in social media marketing and contemporary art. 

"I decided to put all my experience together and create something like an ice bucket challenge, with a small daily routine for everyone," he says. 

Figurines in front of the Kremlin on a bridge over the Moskva River. The woman’s sign reads: “Stop killing children.”

Russians placing protest figurines such as these in public would almost certainly face lengthy prison terms if caught.

A figurine of a doctor declaring, “I’m not healing people so they can go off and die in the war."

The Instagram account administrator says, “Today in Russia it’s very dangerous to do political art,” and adds, “A lot of my friends are sitting in jail.”