A Russian opposition politician has shared heart-rending images of children detained in the back of a police van after taking part in anti-war protests.
Per photographs shared by opposition politician, Ilya Yashin, children are among those that have been detained by officers. The pictures show at least three children, who are no older than primary school age, sitting at the back of what is reportedly a Moscow police van holding flowers and banners. One reporter claimed the children went to lay flowers at the city’s Ukrainian embassy.
One girl in the picture is shown holding a sign that says ‘No War’ in Russian. Small Russian and Ukrainian flags have been painted around the words. To the right, the two flags are drawn followed by a small pink heart, and a “Russia plus Ukraine equals love” writing.
The girl is shown sitting on a chair in the back of a police van with a blank expression, with two children sitting beside her, who also both appear calm despite the circumstances.
A girl to her left is shown in the picture holding a bunch of flowers and another banner, while a boy to her left has his backpack at his feet.
Another photo shows the girl standing up against metal bars that are keeping them inside the van. Her face appears red as if she had been crying. The other children can be seen behind her, with what appears to be at least two Russian police officers dressed in black uniforms.
According to reports, officers in the same uniforms have been seen in Russian cities cracking down on protesters and bundling them into vans.
A third picture, again, showing the girl, suggests the children were taken to a police station. She can be seen sitting on a chair next to a desk, where a woman in police uniform and a mask is working on a computer. The ‘no war’ banners they were holding are laid out on the desk behind the girl, as is one of her flowers.
Ilya Yashin posted the pictures to social media writing on Facebook: “Nothing out of the ordinary: just kids in paddy wagons behind an anti-war poster. This is Putin’s Russia, folks. You live here”. He then predicted that the “Kremlin propaganda machine” would blame the children’s parents, telling people “not to involve their kids in politics”.
“Many generations in our country [are] taught from the school bench that the worst thing is war, and the main value is the peaceful sky above the head”.
Ilya Yashin
Yashin recalled his own time at school, saying he and his classmates would draw anti-war posters. “And that’s ok!” he added. “Children against war is damn normal!”
The images were picked up and shared by reporters. One said that the children were taken by their mothers to lay flowers at the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow.
However, the women, along with their children, were arrested and thrown in the police van, the reporter disclosed, adding they would all be held by police overnight.
The journalist claimed that there was a fourth child who was detained that was not pictured in the photographs.
Russians risk their freedom to protest at Kremlin children
Despite the Kremlin having no tolerance for disagreement, protesters have defied Moscow and taken to the streets against President Vladimir Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine, risking jail and even treason charges.
Almost 7,000 people have so far been detained by Russian police in as many as 50 cities, according to OVD-Info – an organization that tracks protests in the country.
Meanwhile, in Saint Petersburg, another night of protests saw police cracking down on anti-war demonstrations on Tuesday, March 2,2022. On Sunday, February 27, 2022 alone, police arrested 1,700 protesters across 46 Russian cities, OVD-Info reported. Pictures from Moscow and Saint Petersburg showed officers grabbing protesters and carrying them to police vans.
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