More than a thousand supporters of the exiled Russian opposition, led among others by Yulia Navalnaya – the wife of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny – marched in Berlin today against Russian President Vladimir Putin and against the war in Ukraine, a rally with limited participation which aimed to breathe new life into the weakened movement of his opponents Kremlin.

Participants in this rally marched through the center of the German capital shouting slogans “No to war!”, “Russia without Putin!” and “Russia will be free!”, before the march ended in front of the Russian embassy, ​​AFP reporters reported.

Organizers estimated the number of participants at up to 2,000, far fewer than those who took part in previous major opposition demonstrations in Russia in 2021 – even though Berlin is home to a host of Russian exiles.

The Russian opposition, which lost its leader Alexei Navalny in February, who died under unclear circumstances in prison, is under a violent crackdown in Russia and is trying to relaunch the movement from abroad.

Vladimir Putin has been in power for nearly 25 years in Russia, and all of his major political opponents are now dead, imprisoned or in exile.

Navalnya led the march with the other initiators of the mobilization: opposition activist Ilya Yashin, who was recently released from prison, and Vladimir Kara-Murza, a longtime Kremlin adversary who survived two assassination attempts and was released by Russian prison on August 1 as part of a major prisoner swap between Russia and the West.

“We must fight against Putin’s regime (…), fight against this war launched by Putin against Ukraine! “We are here to say that Putin is a war criminal whose place is not in the Kremlin, but in prison,” Yasin said.

This demonstration, the first major mobilization organized by the Russian opposition abroad, had demands including the “immediate withdrawal” of Russian troops from Ukraine, the impeachment and trial of Vladimir Putin and the release of all political prisoners in Russia .

“It is important to show that Russians and Russian-speakers are not all pro-Putin, but that they also defend liberal democratic values, that they are against war,” said one protester, Polina Zelenskaya, a 21-year-old Russian-speaking student from Estonia.

Another protester, Dmitry Tolmachiov, a 55-year-old businessman who fled Russia three years ago after facing legal threats for his activism, said it was his “duty” to protest on behalf of those unable to do so in his country .

“If we do nothing, nothing will change,” he told AFP.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday mocked Kremlin opponents… “whose opinion doesn’t matter.”

Scandals within the Russian opposition have also weakened it and disillusioned some of its activists.

Another difficulty for the opposition: its reluctance to provide more support to Ukraine, beyond its demand for an “immediate end” to the war.

The march was also harshly criticized by Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Oleksiy Makeyev, who told Zeit of a “walk without dignity and without consequences”.