Daily Times

Pro-Russia protesters rallied in Germany on Sunday, with the country’s significant Russian-speaking population demanding an end to the discrimination it says it has suffered since war began in Ukraine. Germany is home to 1.2 million people of Russian origin and 325,000 from Ukraine. Authorities fear the conflict could be imported into Germany and the protests used to promote Moscow’s war narrative. Police have recorded 383 anti-Russian offences and 181 anti-Ukrainian offences since the Kremlin’s invasion started on February 24. Around 600 people descended on financial hub Frankfurt on Sunday amid a sea of Russian flags to protest “against hatred and harassment”, an AFP journalist saw, and there was a heavy police presence. “I came here because I support peace, children are beaten at school because they speak Russian, that’s not acceptable,” Ozan Yilmaz, 24, told AFP. “The war didn’t start this year, it has been going on since 2014 and so I find that speaking of an attack” against Ukraine by Russia is “not really appropriate”, said Sebastian, 25, who was in the crowd. Police threw up a large cordon to separate the protesters — marching behind a banner that read “Truth and diversity of opinion over PROPAGANDA” — from a pro-Ukraine counter-demonstration of around 100 people near the city’s central banking district.