Ukraine crisis: Thousands march in Moscow anti-war rally

[bsnub]

Thousands of people have marched in Moscow to protest against Russia's involvement in the Ukraine conflict.

People carrying Russian and Ukrainian flags chanted "No to war!" and "Stop lying!" Similar rallies took place in St Petersburg and other Russian cities.

Ukraine accuses Russia of arming rebels in the east and sending Russian troops across the border. Moscow denies this.

More than 3,000 people have died in fighting since April.

A truce was agreed on 5 September but there have been repeated violations since then.

The fighting began after Russia annexed Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula in March - a move condemned by Ukraine and the West.

Moscow police said about 5,000 protesters took part in Sunday's demonstration but a reporter for the AP news agency estimated that the crowd was at least 20,000-strong.

The organisers said the numbers were far higher for a march they described as a protest against Russia's "aggressive foreign policy".





The demonstrators marched from Pushkin Square to Sakharov Avenue in central Moscow.

Police stepped up security in the capital and there were only minor scuffles reported between rival demonstrators.

It is Russia's first major anti-war rally since the fighting began five months ago in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

A number of supporters of the pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine held their own rally in Moscow.

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Social media reaction to Moscow's anti-war rally
Vladimir Varfolomeyev, a journalist from Russia's Ekho Moskvy radio station, on the anti-war march turnout: "50,000, in my view, is a conservative estimate. Most likely it was slightly bigger."

Oleg Kashin, a correspondent with Kommersant newspaper, said: "The party of peace ended up on top today. And the party of war lost. And that's fantastic."

Kristina Potupchik, a pro-Kremlin blogger, wrote: "The organisers preferred to forget the fact that there is currently a ceasefire in Ukraine, which was achieved partly due to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin personally."

"Look at this coven of orcs with flags of Nato and [Ukrainian nationalist group] Right Sector in Moscow. Does Russia need all this pestilence?" former professional boxer Nikolay Valuyev tweeted.

In Ukraine, fighting was reported to be continuing on Sunday close to the city of Donetsk despite an agreement on Friday to set up a 30km (19 miles) buffer zone as part of the Minsk memorandum.

The government in Kiev said its military forces would not pull back until pro-Russian forces stop firing and Russian troops leave. Russia denies that its forces are involved.

Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said violations of the ceasefire continued, telling reporters: "In the last 24 hours we have lost two Ukrainian soldiers, eight have been wounded."

On Saturday, Gen Philip Breedlove, Nato's supreme commander in Europe, said the ceasefire existed "in name only".

He said the numbers of artillery rounds fired recently was comparable to periods before the truce came into effect two weeks ago.

Gen Breedlove said that since last week, some Russian forces inside Ukraine had returned to Russia but remained available to "bring their military force to bear on Ukraine".

BBC News - Ukraine crisis: Thousands march in Moscow anti-war rally

[wasabi]

The dick heads in Government have finally got it, Europeans is no longer prepared to kill each other, because the dick heads in Washington DC have wrong footed the move and mood.
IS nice diversion.
U.S.A. will continue the cold war, yet Europeans say ,all we want in Europe is to trade goods and enrich each other.
The cold war is over.

[zygote1]

The dick heads in Government have finally got it, Europeans is no longer prepared to kill each other, because the dick heads in Washington DC have wrong footed the move and mood.
IS nice diversion.
U.S.A. will continue the cold war, yet Europeans say ,all we want in Europe is to trade goods and enrich each other.
The cold war is over.

The protest has nothing to do with Europeans or "dickheads" in Washington DC. It's all about Russian kids coming back in coffins under "undisclosed" circumstances. The explanations given for their deaths has been anything but open or honest with repeated denials that they died in the Ukraine on deployment. As well, the sanctions are hurting. The Russian middle class likes the freedoms it gained and there are many brave Russians who do not support Putin's primal Stalinist urges.

You are gravely mistaken to attempt to lay the blame for the crisis at the door step at the USA. It was the Europeans who offered the linkage to the EU, not the USA. The internal fight in the Ukraine was over that EU agreement. Putin made the mistake of reacting in a thuggish manner and of threatening Poland. The Poles suffered under the Russian alliance with the Nazis and saw their country invaded by the Russians which made it easier for the Nazis to invade and promulgate horrors on occupied Poland. At the close of WWII the Russians invaded massacring tens of thousands of Poles and basically enslaving Poland. The Poles know their history and that's why they have been one of the most vocal supporters of the Ukrainians. They do it not out of any love for the primitive and backward Ukraine, but out of concern for their own freedom. The Poles have demonstrated amazing diplomatic might and acumen in their lobbying on behalf of the Ukrainians and pushed the USA and Canada to provide moral support. Canada, with a approx. 2 million Canadians of Ukrainian heritage, and having one of the largest and most powerful Ukrainian communities outside of the Ukraine, then responded to an important voting block. It was the USA, that has refused to supply lethal aid to the Ukraine, while the EU and Canada have sold arms to the Ukraine. It was the USA that attempted to arrange a fair settlement and to buttress peace.

Through all this, Putin has blundered. He has scared the Baltic states and pushed them closer to the west and forced them to increase their defense spending. His continued aggression has put Sweden on edge such that it has increased its airforce activity in the Baltic region. Those aren't US military personnel deployed to Poland, but other NATO countries and those are Canadian F-18's deployed to Romania and Danish troops in for training. Putin was the one who made irresponsible comments that he could have his troops in Warsaw in a week. He sent a wake up call to the former Warsaw pact Soviet vassal states such that they will do their utmost to undermine Russia for the next generation. Through all this, the USA has let the EU decide what it will do.
The worst aspect is that the sympathy to a large extent lay with Russia. All it had to do was to keep its aggression in check and it would have gotten what it wanted. Russia could have dumped the corrupt basket case of the Ukraine on the west for good. Instead, he's given his people dead Russians, the cost of subsidizing and occupying part of the Ukraine and the burden of international sanctions that will cripple the Russian economy. Russia deserves better than that, and Putin can do better than that. Maybe the protests will nudge Putin back to reality.

[Takeovers]

Maybe the protests will nudge Putin back to reality.

Sorry can't green you.

Everything but the last sentence I agree to. Putin is beyond reason at this point. In that sense he is way more dangerous than the soviet regime ever was. They were expansionist but checked by reality. Putin is not.