The protest in Moscow was so small and so overrun with press in yellow vests you might hardly make out the few solitary figures who’d had the braveness to come back to the designated spot on the appointed time. But the police have their methods.
One by one, individuals who’d been doing nothing however standing there have been hauled off and thrown into the backs of police vans. More ladies than males – however males additionally, who danger being issued with draft notices on the detention centres tonight.
There’s no level in speaking to individuals there as a result of a digital camera identifies them as a protester and so they’ll get taken away instantly.
One lady yelled “we are not meat” as she was dragged previous. A lady in a wheelchair with a prosthetic leg held an indication saying: “Do you want to be like me?”
The police ripped it out of her arms however fortunately, they let her be.
A feminine medic we spoke to properly away from the motion stated she’d deal with whoever she needed to, although she hasn’t acquired a name up – many medics have. But she stated she was upset in her authorities.
“Can protest make any difference?” I ask.
“Ten years ago, maybe,” she stated sadly. “Not now.”
Not removed from the rally, residents of Donbas have been voting at a polling station established within the lately opened embassy of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. They will not be needing an embassy quickly if Russia declares it part of its territory, which can nearly actually occur sooner or later subsequent week after polls shut on Tuesday. There is not any authorized basis to those “referenda,” however that did not trouble the keen voters we met.
“We are for Putin, we are for reunification with Russia. We love it, adore it, we just want to be together,” stated one lady, assuredly skipping by means of the gates. “During these eight years Donbas went through so much. If you only knew how they bombed, how they bullied us.”
“Inform your leadership that Biden is a killer, a bloody killer, Biden and Zelenskyy,” one other lady says, seemingly incensed by the actual fact I used to be from the UK. “You know what I want to say to Britain? Stop giving Ukraine weapons. Stop it! We are saving our children but there they are being killed.”
Their youngsters could develop as much as see a Russia after Putin, however the legacy he’ll depart is a darkish one.
As we return to see what’s occurring on the protest, a younger lady comes as much as us, clutching one thing inside her jumper. “Can you film me? I have a placard,” she asks.
We inform her she’ll be arrested straight away. “That’s what I want.”
She holds up the placard. It says “I’m scared”, in Russian. I inform her it is courageous to do that. Then the police come.
As they cart her away, she says “it’s better than to live in today’s Russia”.
Source: information.sky.com”