Pro-Russian Protests in Germany
Several pro-Russian demonstrations have been held in Germany this weekend at the initiative of the country’s large Russian-speaking community, which considers itself a victim of discrimination since the war in Ukraine broke out.
About 600 people waved a wave of Russian tricolor flags in central Frankfurt on Sunday under the slogan “against hatred and intimidation”, AFP noted. Because many people gathered at the same time in Hanover, in the north of the country, at the appeal of members of the Russian-speaking community, local police told AFP. The day before, similar demonstrations had been held in Lübeck, in northern Germany, with 150 participants, according to the police, as well as in Stuttgart.
In Frankfurt, protesters first found themselves near the city’s banking district, where they faced a pro-Ukraine counter-demonstration of about 100 people, the two camps separated by a large police cordon.
The pro-Russian demonstration set out to reach the city’s main cemetery, organizers say, and lay flowers on the graves of Soviet soldiers who died during World War II. At the head of the procession, a banner read: “Truth and diversity of opinions instead of PROPAGANDA”†
In Hanover, where the pro-ruse protesters organized a car convoy, under close police surveillance, a counter-demonstration gathered 3,500 people under the slogan “Support Ukraine! †the police said.
The day before, the police in Lübeck had stopped a similar convoy of about sixty vehicles because “violations of the law”specifically “expressing support for the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and the use of prohibited symbols”according to the local police.
The German authorities fear that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict will be imported into German territory.
Germany has 1.2 million people, themselves or their families, who come from Russia, and 325,000 from Ukraine, to which must be added the arrival of more than 316,000 Ukrainian refugees last month.
The proliferation of demonstrations that the “russophobia” who would have won Germany has provoked a lively debate in the country, because the authorities see the danger of instrumentalization for the positions that Moscow is defending in this war. Since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, the police have registered 383 anti-Russian crimes and 181 anti-Ukrainian crimes.
