“We, Russia, want to be a nation of peace. Alas, few would now call us that. But we want at least not to become a nation of fearful silent people. Cowards who pretend not to notice the aggressive war unleashed by our evidently mad Tsar against the Ukraine”. This is the dramatic appeal of Alexey Navalny, the main political opponent of the Russian president. L'announcement on Twitter was done by his spokesman Kira Yarmysh: “Alexey Navalny asks people out and protest against the war every day at 19 pm and on weekends at 14 pm in the "main squares of your cities, wherever you are". Navalny's movement had previously called for a civil disobedience campaign to protest Russia's invasion of Kiev.
Alexey Navalny on Twitter: "I can't, I won't and I won't remain silent"
“I am from the Soviet Union. I was born there. And the main phrase of my childhood was 'struggle for peace'. A principle that the dissident now asks everyone to defend. "I urge everyone to take to the streets and fight for peace."
Then the reference to the protests of the last few days repressed by the police with numerous arrests. “Putin is not Russia. And if there's anything in Russia you can be proud of, it's those 6.824 people who were arrested because they took to the streets with “no to war” placards. It is said that you cannot organize a demonstration, otherwise there is the risk of being arrested. I'm already in prison, so I think I'm allowed,” Alexey Navalny jokes on Twitter.
Navalny was arrested in January 2021 upon returning from Germany, where he had spent his recovery after surviving nerve gas poisoning in August 2020. Upon his return to Moscow, he was arrested in a fraud case dating back to 2014 and convicted to three and a half years in prison. A new trial began last February 15, in which the Russian dissident is accused of stealing more than 465 million rubles (approximately 4,1 million euros) from the funds of donations made to his foundation (today declared outside law). An accusation for which he risks another 10 years in prison, plus another six months for contempt of court.
Navalny urges the people of Russia and Belarus to demonstrate in main squares
“We cannot wait even a day. Wherever you are. In Russia, Belarus or on the other side of the planet. Go out to the main square of your city every weekday at 19pm and at 14pm on weekends and public holidays. If you can go on a march, do it on the weekend. Yes, there may be few people on the first day, and even less on the second. But we must, grit our teeth and overcome fear, show up and demand an end to the war”. And that every person arrested "must be replaced by two people in the square"
“If, to end the war, we have to fill the prisons and police cars we will – he concludes – Everything has a price, and now, in the spring of 2022, we have to pay that price. We must not be against the war but fight against the war”.
