Today at noon, there was an anti-war pacifist action in front of the Russian Federation Consulate in Almaty. Civic activists, including Bota Sharipzhan, Darkhan Sharip, Asem Zhapisheva, and Tamilya Anchutkina participated in the action.
In memory of the civilians murdered by the Russian forces in Bucha and other Ukrainian cities, activists laid down on the asphalt in front of the Russian Consulate. The activists were raising Ukrainian flags; some had ropes tied around their wrists, symbolic of those used to bind murdered Ukrainians.
Once the action began, all the activists were detained by uniformed and civilian police and loaded into police vans. The police had accumulated a considerable number of police and specialized vehicles around the Russian Consulate building in advance. During the detention, the activists chanted “Fascists.”
From the very first days after Russia launched the 24 February invasion of Ukraine, several anti-war actions and rallies of solidarity with Ukraine have already taken place in Almaty. In the cities of Kazakhstan, people and NGOs continue to raise humanitarian aid for the affected Ukrainians.
On April 9, the rally was dedicated to those killed in Bucha and other cities of Ukraine, where many war crimes against civilians by the Russian armed forces were recorded.
Context
On the 37th day of the war in Ukraine, it became known that after Russian troops withdrew from the Kyiv region, numerous bodies of murdered civilians were found strewn on the streets of Bucha, and some had their hands tied. According to the BBC, whose correspondents visited the suburbs of the Ukrainian capital on April 1, “reporters and authorities who arrived in the city after the withdrawal of Russian troops found at least 20 bodies of men lying in the streets. Many had extensive wounds; some were shot at point-blank range with a shot to the temple. Several bodies were clearly run over by tanks.” Also, a 14-meter-long mass grave had been found in the town, where, according to some estimates, 150 to 300 people were buried.
The Russian side categorically rejects all allegations and says the footage from Bucha is “a staged performance” by Ukraine. However, satellite images taken by Maxar and published in the New York Times confirm the Ukrainian authorities and international publications' allegations of war crimes in the town.
