NEWS: Russia
Russian police arrest more than 2,000 anti-war protesters in Ukraine.

Russ­ian police have arrest­ed more than 2,000 anti-war pro­test­ers across the coun­try, an inde­pen­dent mon­i­tor said, on the fourth day of Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin’s inva­sion of Ukraine, which took many Rus­sians by surprise.

OVD-Info, which has been doc­u­ment­ing the crack­down on the Russ­ian oppo­si­tion for years, said 2,114 pro­test­ers were arrest­ed Sunday.

Turkey calls Rus­si­a’s inva­sion of Ukraine a “
That brought to 5,250 the num­ber of pro­test­ers arrest­ed since Putin launched the inva­sion in the ear­ly hours of Thurs­day, the mon­i­tor said.

In Moscow, riot police often out­num­bered the pro­test­ers, some of whom car­ried hand­writ­ten signs with peace signs and anti-war slo­gans in Russ­ian and Ukrain­ian. Some wore masks with the word “Enough” writ­ten on the front.

A jour­nal­ist from the inde­pen­dent tele­vi­sion sta­tion Dozhd was arrest­ed dur­ing the protests after show­ing his accred­i­ta­tion to police and wear­ing a press vest.

Out­side the upscale Gostiny Dvor depart­ment store in down­town St. Peters­burg, hun­dreds of anti-war pro­test­ers gath­ered, hug­ging and chanting.

Many held signs that read “No to war,” “Rus­sians go home” and “Peace to Ukraine.”

“It’s a pity that there are hun­dreds, even thou­sands of us, and not mil­lions,” said 35-year-old engi­neer Vladimir Vilokhonov, who took part in the protest.

Anoth­er pro­test­er, Aly­ona Stepano­va, 25, came to the demon­stra­tion with a packed bag in case “we were tak­en away.”

“We think it’s our duty to come here,” she said.

Riot police tried to muf­fle their anti-war cries by play­ing patri­ot­ic music.

“I am against the war. I was born in 1941 and I know what it means,” said Vale­ria Andreye­va, who was born the year Nazi Ger­many attacked the Sovi­et Union.

Sun­day’s protests coin­cid­ed with the sev­enth anniver­sary of the assas­si­na­tion of oppo­si­tion politi­cian Boris Nemtsov.

In Moscow, some of the arrests took place at a makeshift memo­r­i­al just out­side the Krem­lin at the site where Nemtsov was shot, a Reuters wit­ness said. “No to war!” shout­ed one of the pro­test­ers as he was led away by police.

Nemtsov was a promi­nent crit­ic of Putin, Rus­si­a’s 2014 annex­a­tion of Crimea and Moscow’s sup­port for pro-Russ­ian sep­a­ratists in Ukraine, which ulti­mate­ly led to what Putin calls a “spe­cial oper­a­tion” to pro­tect two sep­a­ratist regions, though his troops are fight­ing in wider Ukraine.

Ukraine’s West­ern allies have imposed unprece­dent­ed sanc­tions in response to Rus­si­a’s land, sea and air invasion.