26/01/2023
Amid Russia’s crackdown on resistance to the war in Ukraine, some Muscovites have dared to lay bouquets and other offerings at a statue of a Ukrainian poet in Moscow, protesting the country’s strike on civilians in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
A Russian missile struck a residential building in Dnipro nine days ago, killing 46 people and injuring 80 others. Since then, Muscovites have been coming to lay flowers, plush toys and photographs of the destroyed building at the feet of the statue of Lesya Ukrainka, a Ukrainian poet and playwright who lived during the last decades of the Russian Empire. The ritual, after one of the biggest death tolls from one strike since the war began, has become an expression of sorrow, shame and opposition to the war.
Spurred by social media, Russians have begun laying flowers in other cities, too. This quiet act has become one of the first public protests taking place on a large scale since President Vladimir Putin’s announcement last September that hundreds of thousands of men would be called up to fight. Russia has imposed harsh penalties for criticizing the war, or even calling it one, so for many Russians, the flower tussle seems like a rare opportunity to show dissent without being arrested.
But at least seven people have been detained, four of whom placed flowers at the site, according to a New York Times journalist who witnessed the episodes over the past week. At regular intervals, the authorities have been removing the flowers and have tried to prevent people from photographing the memorial. But people keep arriving, looking for an opening to place their flowers when many are not gathered around the monument so that it does not seem like an illegal public gathering.
