About 800 people, according to the police, participated in a demonstration in the center of Frankfurt, raising Russian flags, in a move “against hate and abuse”, according to AFP correspondents.
600 people took part in a similar gathering organized simultaneously in Hanover in the north of the country, which was called by members of the Russian-speaking community, local police told AFP.
On Saturday, two similar demonstrations were held in Lübeck (north), with the participation of 150 people, according to the police, and in Stuttgart (south-west).
In Frankfurt, protesters initially gathered on Bank Street in the city under tight security.
“I came here because with peace, there are children who are being beaten in schools because they speak Russian, this is unacceptable,” protester Ozan Yilmaz, 24, told AFP.
Participants in the pro-Russian rally marched towards the city’s largest cemetery to lay flowers at the fence in honor of Soviet soldiers who died in World War II.
The march was topped by a large banner that read, “Truth and diversity of opinions, not propaganda.”
“The war did not start this year, it has been going on since 2014, so I consider that talk of Russian aggression” against Ukraine is actually an inaccurate description, said a 25-year-old demonstrator.
In Hanover, where pro-Russian demonstrators paraded under police watch, a rally was held for 3,500 people under the slogan “Support Ukraine,” police said.
And Saturday, the security forces in Lubek prevented a similar convoy of about sixty cars from moving forward due to “violating the legislation” in force, especially with regard to “expressing support for Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine and the use of prohibited symbols,” according to the local police.
The German authorities fear the extension of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict to the territory of the country.
In Germany, 1.2 million people, who or their families, are from Russia, and 325,000 are from Ukraine, in addition to at least 316,000 Ukrainian refugees who have arrived in Germany since the start of the war in Ukraine on February 24.
The increase in demonstrations denouncing “Russophobia” in Germany has sparked a sharp debate in the country, as the authorities fear that these moves will be exploited in political propaganda and in defense of slogans raised by Moscow in its war on Ukraine.
Since the start of Russian operations in Ukraine, the police have detected 383 offenses against Russians and 181 offenses against Ukrainians.
According to the police, the number of participants in counter-demonstrations in support of Ukraine reached about 2,500 in Frankfurt and 3,500 in Hanover.
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