More Ukrainian flags put up by Russian activists today, Ukraine’s Independence Day. Two by the Kremlin, and one in St. Petersburg.
Six activists showed up in Lubyanka Square, by the KGB/FSB building, holding flags of Ukraine, Georgia, and Chechnya (Ichkeria) and shouting, “Free political prisoners” and “Rusnya, pull back the tanks!” (Rusnya is pejorative for Russia or the Russians.)
Also, “death to the Empire” and “freedom to Boris Stomakhin”, a radical journalist who served five years in prison for his articles and has recently been sentenced to seven more. For nothing but his writings, extremist as they may sound.
On the dark side, after Satan’s Parade in Donetsk, I find it rather hard to have a shred of sympathy for the natives supporting the separatists.
The anti-blue-and-yellow paranoia is reaching absurd levels. Someone joked that Swedes in Russia had better watch out. I can foresee Marcus Ericsson fans getting arrested at the Sochi Grand Prix in October (if that goes ahead).
The Parade showed the DPR forces are nothing but a sick bunch of neo-Stalinists. It’s as if they were playing out Strelkov’s military re-enactment fantasies for real. The ICC should go after them for war crimes.