Anti-war sentiment grows in Russia despite govt crackdown

By DASHA LITVINOVA and VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
Associated Press

MOSCOW (AP) — As Russian troops were closing in on the Ukrainian capital, more and more Russians at home were speaking out against the invasion even as the government’s official rhetoric grew increasingly harsher. Street protests, albeit small, resumed in the Russian capital of Moscow, in the country’s second-largest city of St. Petersburg and in other Russian cities for the third straight day despite mass detentions on Thursday and Friday. At least 460 people in 34 Russian cities were detained Saturday over anti-war protests. Thousands of Russians also signed open letters condemning the invasion of Ukraine. Russian authorities in the meantime took a harsher stance towards those denouncing the invasion.