Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny urged Russians to stage daily protests against Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, saying the country should not be a “nation of frightened cowards” and calling Vladimir Putin “an insane little tsar.”
“I am urging everyone to take to the streets and fight for peace,” he said in a statement posted on Facebook, calling on Russians not to be afraid of going to prison.
“If, to prevent war, we need to fill up the jails and police vans, we will fill up the jails and police vans.”
“Everything has a price and now, in the spring of 2022, we should pay that price.”
The 45-year-old, who led the biggest protests in Russia against Putin in recent years and survived a poisoning with Novichok nerve agent in 2020, is now serving a prison sentence on old fraud charges outside Moscow.
Thousands of Russians have taken to the streets to protest the invasion, and more than 6,800 demonstrators have been arrested, according to OVD-Info, an independent monitor.
Navalny urged the people of Russia and Belarus — which allowed Russian troops passage to attack Ukraine — to demonstrate in main squares at 7:00 pm every weekday and at 2:00 pm on weekends and during holidays.
“You cannot wait another day,” he said, adding that Russia should not become a “nation of frightened cowards” who are pretending not to see an “aggressive war unleashed by our clearly insane little tsar.”
Putin last Thursday ordered troops to invade pro-Western Ukraine to “de-militarise” and “denazify” the country.
Ukraine says more than 350 civilians, including 14 children, have been killed in the conflict and the International Criminal Court has opened a war crimes investigation against Russia.
Putin invaded Ukraine amid a historic crackdown on the opposition at home, with Navalny’s political organisations banned.
Navalny accused Putin of using “pseudo-historic nonsense” to justify the invasion of Ukraine.
“I cannot, do not want and will not remain silent, watching how pseudo-historical nonsense about the events from 100 years ago has become an excuse for Russians to kill Ukrainians, and those, defending themselves, kill Russians,” he said.
