Hundreds of Russians, shocked, protested their country’s attack on Ukraine on Thursday. Some 1,745 people in 54 Russian cities were detained, at least 957 of them in Moscow.
Prsident Vladimir Putin called the attack a “special military operation” to protect civilians in eastern Ukraine from “genocide”. Moscow launched a full-scale attack from land, water and air, leaving at least 137 Ukranian troops dead after fighting on Thursday.
Tatyana Usmanova, an opposition activist in Moscow, wrote on Facebook that she thought she was dreaming when she awoke at 5:30 a.m. to the news, which she called “a disgrace that will be forever with us now.”
“I want to ask Ukrainians for forgiveness. We didn’t vote for those who unleashed the war,” she said.