This week’s tribute to the hostages takes us to Berlin, Germany, where Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Alexei Navalny, along with former hostages Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin, and about 2,000 Russian exiles and sympathizers marched to the Russian Embassy to protest the war against Ukraine, to demand the release of Russia’s political prisoners, and to urge the ouster of Vladimir Putin and his trial as a war criminal. [RFE/RL, November 17, 2024.]

Shouting “Russia without Putin” and “No to war,” the crowd marched peacefully behind the three opposition leaders from Potsdamer Platz to the Brandenburg Gate in central Berlin. Addressing the crowd, Yashin said, “Putin is not Russia. Russia is us. And we are against the war.”

In a statement released prior to the march, the organizers told the world:

“The march aims to unite everyone who stands against Vladimir Putin’s aggressive war in Ukraine and political repressions in Russia.” [Id.]

Yet the protest had its detractors, including the Ukrainian Ambassador to Germany, Oleksiy Makeev, who said it was a “walk without dignity and without consequences,” and that it merely displayed the opposition group’s “weakness.” In the Zeit newspaper, he had also written that the three — Navalnaya, Kara-Murza and Yashin — were not doing enough to support Ukraine, and that they should be urging their fellow Russian citizens to protest in Russia.

Perhaps Ambassador Makeev has a point. But has he considered the futility and the dangers of staging even the smallest, most peaceful protest in Russia? It’s easy for him to speak from the safety of Berlin, but he should first recall the fate of Alexei Navalny and others who fought against the odds . . . and lost their lives.

I see today’s march as a tribute to those who have made that effort and are still paying for it. And to those non-Russians who sit beside them in prison as political pawns of Vladimir Putin, waiting for their turn to be traded and sent home.

Sometimes the fight against tyranny has to begin outside the palace walls . . . or, in this case, outside the country’s borders.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/17/24