Russian opposition marches against Putin in Berlin

Yulia Navalnaya, widow of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, speaks during a demonstration of supporters of Russia’s exiled opposition in Berlin, on November 17, 2024. Agence France-Presse

BERLIN — Around 1,500 supporters of Russia’s exiled opposition marched Sunday through central Berlin — led by Yulia Navalnaya and chanting “No to war!” and “No to Putin” — in a demonstration against Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Organizers had called on supporters to take to the streets of the German capital to denounce the war, as well as show solidarity with political prisoners in Russia.

The war in Ukraine has turned Berlin into a refuge for many anti-Kremlin Russians and Ukrainian refugees.

READ: Yulia Navalnaya says she wants Putin to go from ‘tsar’ to ‘prisoner’

The march saw a smaller turnout than expected and was seen as a credibility test for the movement — weakened by years of repression and thrown into disarray since the death of its main leader Alexei Navalny in prison earlier this year.

Unable to protest at home, the opposition wants to mobilize some of the hundreds of thousands of Russians who left their country since the Kremlin launched the 2022 invasion.

President Vladimir Putin has been in power for almost 25 years in Russia, and all of his significant political opponents are now dead, jailed or in exile.

READ: Dissidents freed in prisoner swap vow to keep up fight against Putin

“Putin is a murderer,” Yulia Navalnaya, who has taken the helm of the movement since the death of her husband, told crowds.

She organised the march with two other oppositionists: longtime anti-Putin campaigner and former Moscow city councillor Ilya Yashin and activist Vladimir Kara-Murza — both recently freed from prison.

Organisers said they wanted to show that not all Russians support the Kremlin’s invasion.

Organisers estimated the turnout to be at 2,000 people.

“I am very happy that everyone saw that there are many Russians that do not support Putin’s politics,” Yashin told AFP, adding:

“It is an act of solidarity with those who stayed in Russia. We want to tell them: ‘Guys, don’t give up, we will continue the fight.”

‘Not all Russians for Putin’

Both Yashin and Kara-Murza were freed from prison — where they served sentences for denouncing the Ukraine invasion — after a prisoner swap with the West this summer.

The opposition says it has three main demands: the “immediate withdrawal” of troops from Ukraine, the trial of Putin as a “war criminal” and the liberation of all political prisoners in Russia.

Russian student Polina Zelenskaya traveled to Berlin from Estonia for the march to show that “not all Russians are for Putin, like the world may think.”

She dreams of a Russian where people are “not afraid to speak their minds” and where “power is not in (the hands) of one person.”

There were some well known activists and campaigners in the crowd.

Oleg Orlov, a veteran dissident who was freed in the same swap as Yashin and Kara-Murza, said Kremlin opponents currently have two reasons for “pain”: “The war and political prisoners. It is constant pain.”

The event is also seen as a check-up for the movement, weakened by years of repression and suffering a huge blow with the death of Navalny.

Since his death, various factions have been tearing each other apart in bitter conflicts.

Navalny’s team has accused the camp led by ex-oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky of ordering a hammer attack on one of its members. Another faction accused Navalny’s anti-corruption fund of covering up the machinations of a shady banker.

The simmering conflicts frustrated supporters, many of whom are losing hope in the third year of the war.

‘Duty of those who can’

“The opposition is now looking for leaders. The aim is to consolidate the opposition into one camp,” Dmitry Tolmachev, a 55-year-old Siberian businessman who lives in Finland and said he knew Navalny personally, told AFP at the rally.

He said he was at the protest because “if you do nothing, nothing will happen” and because “it is the duty of those who can.”

The Russian opposition has been criticized by some Ukrainians as not supporting their cause strongly enough.

There were a few Ukrainian flags at the rally.

Showcasing the rift between Russian exiles and Ukrainians, Kyiv’s ambassador to Germany wrote of the opposition’s “weakness” in the Zeit newspaper ahead of the march, saying its leaders were not doing enough to support Kyiv.

Likewise Vitsche, the association of Ukrainian exiles in Germany, said that the event “failed to deliver a clear message” of support.