“What’s happening is a disgrace,” says Elena, who was carried away by police for anti-war protests.
In her tiny St Petersburg apartment, 76-year-old artist Elena Osipova shows me the anti-war placards she’s made.
On one she’s written: “Putin is war. We don’t want to die for Putin.”
Another depicts Russia’s president as the devil, with the horns of Satan.
Elena tells me that after Russia attacked Ukraine, she was so shocked, she didn’t eat for three days. Then, filled with anger, she’d taken to the streets to protest.
A small crowd had applauded her: they’d chanted “No War!”
Then two police officers took the pensioner by the arms and led her away.
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Police still haven’t returned one of her placards. She describes it to me: “I’d been given some red tulips, beautiful young flowers. But very quickly they died and wilted. They reminded me of young men falling into their graves.
“So I’d made a poster and wrote that people were being sent to their deaths. And on another placard I appealed to Russian soldiers: ‘Lay down your guns and you will be heroes.'”
Across town, a human rights group, Soldiers’ Mothers of St Petersburg, is operating a hotline.
Parents call in, worried for their conscript sons, some of whom are already fighting in Ukraine.
Many of them desperately ask for help to bring their boys home. There have been lots of calls – but there’s also lots of pressure from above. Olga from the group tells me it is being forced to shut down.
“The authorities prefer to cover things up, to give society a false picture that everything’s fine in the army. They want soldiers’ mothers to be patient and to be silent.”
But in St Petersburg, and across Russia, the authorities are trying to rally support for what the Russian military is doing in Ukraine.
The St Petersburg Police press department has been busy. They have made a number of slick videos, complete with thumping soundtrack, to show support for Russia’s forces in Ukraine.
In one, riot officers link arms with people on the street. The camera pans up to reveal that the crowd has formed the letter Z.
The symbol is painted on many of the Russian military vehicles in Ukraine, and is used to show support for Russia’s offensive. And there are many Russians who do support it – who, for now, believe what the state media here is telling them: that Russia is in the right.
Outside the world-famous Hermitage Museum, I stop to talk to Nadezhda, who is out for a stroll. She tells me: “I love my Motherland and I trust my president, and If you think the West can frighten us by withholding goods, you’re wrong. Russians aren’t scared of cold or hunger.”
But back in her flat, artist Elena Osipova says she will never accept that what Russian is doing in Ukraine is right.
“What’s happening is a disgrace. So many people are being killed. The authorities are trying to arouse patriotic feelings in the public. But it’s all a deception. And many are deceived by the propaganda that has gone on for years and that has changed people. It’s terrible.”
In recent years, Russians have known many wars.
The Soviet war in Afghanistan, two wars in Chechnya, the Russian military getting involved in the war in Syria. And now Ukraine. The Kremlin insists that its troops there are conducting a special military operation.
But most of the world calls it Russia’s war.
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