Exiled Russian activists hold protest against Ukraine war

At least a thousand supporters of Russia's exiled opposition marched on Sunday through central Berlin in its first major demonstration against Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Aimed at reviving the movement riven by internal conflicts, the protesters marched towards Moscow's embassy in the German capital -- with Berlin home to thousands of Ukrainian refugees and Russian critics of President Vladimir Putin.

With the march serving as a litmus test of the opposition in exile's credibility, organisers estimated up to 2,000 supporters rallied to the cause despite darkening skies, chanting "No to the war" and "Russia without Putin".

In recent years the Kremlin has eradicated any political competition at home and waged a massive crackdown on dissent, with hundreds -- possibly thousands -- of Russians in prison for their political views.

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

"It is important to show that Russians and Russian speakers are not all for Putin, as the whole world might think, but that they also defend liberal democratic values, that they are against war and murder," protester and 21-year-old student Polina Zelenskaya told AFP.

The Russian opposition lost its main figurehead in February, when Putin's rival Alexei Navalny died in an Arctic prison in mysterious circumstances.

His widow Yulia Navalnaya, who took the helm of the movement, was at the head of Sunday's march as one of its one of the main organisers.

Unable to operate at home, the opposition was forced to relaunch abroad, where hundreds of thousands of Russians fled in the aftermath of the February 2022 invasion.

Navalnaya joined forces with two other opposition figures for the rally: former Moscow city councillor and longtime anti-Putin campaigner Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza, who survived two poisoning attempts.

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.

 Reconciliation test 
 

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

The charismatic politician was the only figure in Russia who was able in recent years to mobilise thousands of people to take to the streets against Putin.

But Moscow's Ukraine invasion has ushered in a new era of repression comparable with Soviet levels.

Thousands protested after Putin announced the shock invasion. At Navalny's funeral last March -- two years into a massive crackdown on dissent -- thousands also came to pay their respects.

Since his death, various factions of the movement 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.

 'Consolidate forces' 
 

Navalny had galvanised supporters through messages from prison, and without him the movement has struggled to regain momentum.

Showcasing these struggles, Navalnaya admitted in an interview ahead of the march that the opposition currently had "no plan" on how to end Putin's regime or stop the war in Ukraine.

But with the rally, the trio of oppositionists hope to display unity and mobilise the thousands of Russian exiles who fled to Europe, including to evade military conscription.

"It is important to show we can work together to consolidate various forces in the anti-war movement," Kara-Murza said in an interview to exiled media Dozhd earlier this month.

Despite this, Ukraine's ambassador to Germany Oleksiy Makeev criticised the event as a "walk without dignity and without consequences", adding that it illustrated the opposition's "weakness".

Writing in the Zeit newspaper, Makeev argued that the three opposition figures were not doing enough to support Kyiv and call on their fellow citizens to protest in Russia.

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

The Ukraine war is a source of embarrassment for the Russian opposition, which is reluctant to show too much support for Kyiv for fear of alienating Russians and destroying any hope of a future political career in a post-Putin Russia.

The Kremlin, which has painted oppositionists as traitors, has dismissed the march as insignificant.

Its spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the march organisers "monstrously detached from their country" and said "their opinion has no importance".