Russia-Ukraine Crisis: UN human rights office condemns Russia anti-war protests arrests

A spokeswoman for the UN’s human rights office has condemned the “arbitrary” arrests of more than 1,800 people in Russia for protesting against the country’s invasion of Ukraine and called for their immediate release.

“Arresting individuals for exercising their rights to freedom of expression or a peaceful assembly constitutes an arbitrary deprivation of liberty,” Ravina Shamdasani told reporters.

Russian forces have detained more than 1,700 people that protested against Moscow's action to launch a full-scale evacuation in Ukraine on Thursday - a move that has evoked global condemnation. Some 1,745 people in 54 Russian cities were detained, at least 957 of them in Moscow.

According to a report by news agency AFP, about 1,000 people gathered in the former imperial capital Saint Petersburg on Thursday while several thousands gathered near Pushkin Square in central Moscow. Protesters in the Pushkin square chanted: "No to war!"

Hundreds of posts came pouring in on Thursday condemning Moscow's most aggressive actions since the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Vladimir Putin called the attack a "special military operation" to protect civilians in eastern Ukraine from "genocide" - a false claim the U.S. had predicted would be a pretext for invasion, and which many Russians roundly rejected.

OVD-Info, a rights group that tracks political arrests, reported that 1,745 people in 54 cities had been detained by Thursday evening, at least 957 of them in Moscow.

Russia's Investigative Committee issued a warning Thursday afternoon reminding Russians that unauthorised protests are against the law.