Police arrest more than 3,000 people as protests grow across Russia.

Regardless of the specter of yearslong jail phrases, 1000’s of Russians joined antiwar rallies throughout the nation on Sunday in a putting present of the pent-up anger in Russian society about President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The police reported greater than 3,000 arrests throughout the nation — the very best nationwide whole formally reported in any single day of protest in latest reminiscence. An activist group that tracks arrests, OVD-Information, reported detentions in 49 completely different Russian cities.

Video from unbiased Russian information retailers masking the protests confirmed throngs of individuals chanting “No to warfare!” on St. Petersburg’s central avenue, Nevsky Prospekt, and on Moscow’s Manezhnaya Sq., simply outdoors the Kremlin partitions. Different clips confirmed protesters being crushed and kicked by the police, including subsequent to a stand of balloons and present containers inside Moscow’s storied youngsters’s division retailer, Detsky Mir — subsequent door to the headquarters of the home intelligence company, the F.S.B.

Within the metropolis of Kaliningrad close to the Baltic Sea, a lady protesting the warfare was recorded in a video posted on Twitter telling a police officer that she had survived the Nazi siege of Leningrad.

“Are you right here to help the fascists?” the officer responded, repeating the Kremlin narrative concerning the warfare in Ukraine, earlier than calling over different policemen and telling them: “Arrest all of them.”

The 1000’s of Russians who protested on Sunday represented solely a slice of these livid over the invasion. Hundreds extra fled the nation within the final 10 days, as their financial savings evaporated amid the collapse of the ruble and the West’s crushing sanctions.

“There is no such thing as a extra Russia,” Anton Dolin, one in every of Russia’s best-known movie critics, wrote on Sunday, saying his departure. “We’re struggling a disaster — no, not an financial or political one. This can be a ethical disaster.”

In a cellphone interview from Latvia, Mr. Dolin, 46, described how he spent 4 hours within the chilly ready to cross the border on foot Saturday along with his spouse, two youngsters, their canine and some suitcases.

“We have now realized we’re most likely departing for a very long time,” he stated. “We by no means ready for this departure and by no means in our lives even thought we might ever depart Russia.”

Mr. Putin remained defiant, regardless of cellphone calls with the presidents of France and Turkey on Sunday by which each leaders urged Russia to think about a cease-fire.

“An finish to the particular operation is simply potential if Kyiv stops its army motion and fulfills Russia’s well-known calls for,” the Kremlin stated.

By Sunday, the Russian authorities had blocked entry contained in the nation to the web sites of just about all well-liked unbiased media retailers reporting on the warfare. Mr. Putin on Friday signed a legislation punishing “false information” concerning the warfare with jail sentences of as much as 15 years.