Moscow (CNN) — Tasya, 19, was with her friends on a cold morning in the Russian city of St. Petersburg as they joined in the chants of protesters against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: “Nyet Voine!” (“Not to the war!”).
“It’s always safer to be around others… to look over your shoulder, in case you need to run,” said Tasya, who asked that her last name not be used for her safety. At some point, Ella Tasya said her friends left the protest to go home or somewhere else to warm up, leaving her alone on the street.
“Then a group of police officers walked past me… and all of a sudden one of them looked at me and then he turned around and walked towards me and pulled me over,” he said of the Feb. 24 protest.
Police officers detain a demonstrator during a protest against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in downtown Saint Petersburg on February 24, 2022.
Protests continue across Russia as young citizens, along with middle-aged people and even retirees, take to the streets to denounce a military conflict ordered by their president, a decision in which they say they had no say.
Now, they are finding their voice. But the Russian authorities intend to shut down any public dissent against the attack on Ukraine. Police crack down on demonstrations almost as quickly as they arise, dragging some protesters away and manhandling others.
Police in St. Petersburg arrested at least 350 anti-war protesters on Wednesday, bringing the total number of protesters detained or arrested to 7,624 since the invasion began, according to an independent organization that tracks human rights violations in Russia.
Opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military operation in Ukraine, while still limited, comes from unexpected quarters.
One of Russia’s richest men, billionaire businessman Mikhail Fridman, who was born in Ukraine, called the violence a “tragedy” and added that “war can never be the answer”, but stopped short of directly criticizing Putin, according to Financial Times.
“If I make any political statement that is unacceptable in Russia, it will have very clear implications for the company, for our customers, for our creditors, for our shareholders,” Fridman said.
Another oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, posted on his Telegram channel: “Peace is very important! Talks must start as soon as possible.”
Meanwhile, members of Russia’s “intelligentsia” (academicians, writers, journalists and others) have issued public appeals denouncing the war, including a rare “open letter” to Putin signed by 1,200 MGIMO University students, faculty and staff, the prestigious Moscow State Institute of International Relations, affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which produces most of Russia’s government elite and foreign service.
The signatories proclaim that they are “categorically against the military actions of the Russian Federation in Ukraine.”
“We find it morally unacceptable to stand by and remain silent when people are dying in a neighboring state. They are dying because of those who preferred arms to peaceful diplomacy,” the letter says.
The letter is surprisingly personal, with the signatories explaining that: “Many of us have friends and relatives who live in the territories where the military action is taking place. But the war has not only come to them, the war has come to every one of us, and our children and our grandchildren will feel the repercussions. Many generations of future diplomats will have to rebuild trust in Russia and good relations with our neighbors that have been lost.”
An MGIMO representative did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Publicly, Russian diplomats have been in unison with the Kremlin, although the head of a Russian delegation to a United Nations meeting on climate change, Oleg Anisimov, reportedly apologized for the military operation, according to The Washington Post, “in name of all the Russians who could not prevent this conflict,” adding that “those who know what is happening do not see any justification for the attack.”
But many Russians, in fact, do not fully know what is happening in Ukraine. State-controlled television shows almost no reports of Russian bombings and attacks in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, instead focusing on so-called Ukrainian “nationalists” and “neo-fascists.”
A week or so after Russian forces entered Ukraine, many Russians are still waking up to the fact that the war is really going on. The United States and other Western officials had been warning of the upcoming attack for weeks, but Russian state media, especially TV news shows, scoffed at those statements, claiming that Moscow had no intention of taking any military action against Kyiv. In a CNN poll completed before the invasion began, only 13% of Russians thought a Russian attack was likely and two in three (65%) hoped for a peaceful end to tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
But young Russians like Arina, 25, who lives in Moscow, don’t watch TV; she says she hasn’t seen her for seven years. She is on the Internet, reading blogs and listening to vloggers. She has not yet participated in protests, but she has seen young people on the street participating in “silent protests”, pasting “No to war” signs on their backpacks or bags.
She, too, is having a hard time understanding why this war is happening in Ukraine and what it will mean for her own life as a young Russian.
“It’s very difficult to predict anything, of course the situation is horrible,” said Arina, who asked CNN to only use her first name for her safety. “Among some of my friends, there is a lot of anxiety about the future, a lot of fear, because we don’t know how it will affect us.”
But Arina’s mother sees it completely differently: “My mom believes everything she sees on TV,” says Arina.
“She believes it was a necessary move by Putin because there are weapons surrounding the country…there is a threat from the West, which is why Putin is doing this.”
Arina says she even consulted a guide in a Russian online student magazine, Doxa, that suggests how young Russians can talk to their parents and others about the war in Ukraine. “We understand how painful it can be when your parents, friends, colleagues, grandfathers and grandmothers become supporters of the war,” she says.
“So we decided to put together a guide on how to talk about war with those who justify it. In our guide you will find answers to 17 of the most widespread arguments spread by propaganda and most heard in discussions”, he said.
Arina read it just in time. On February 28, the magazine reported that the Russian government agency that oversees communications, IT, and the media demanded Doxa remove the guide from its website.
Arina says that she and her mother “had a very fierce argument.”
“She just doesn’t accept my position and thinks I’m pro-Western, that I don’t understand anything. She doesn’t believe what I say, I don’t believe what she says… We have very different sources of information: I learn everything from independent media, which have mostly been blocked for a long time in Russia, and she watches TV.”
As Arina and her friends follow the news about Ukraine on social media, they see the revulsion among many in the West at Putin’s decision to attack Ukraine. The Russians, she says, have contradictory and opposing reactions.
“The first is that everyone says, ‘Yeah, we should be ashamed.’ The second is, ‘No, let’s not be ashamed of ourselves and take credit for decisions we didn’t make.'”
But both sides agree on one thing, says Arina: they want the international community to know “that the people are not their president, and we did not choose this.”