Spilling into streets and city squares, Russian citizens protest the war in Ukraine

Judy Woodruff:

Meantime, Russian citizens by the thousands are protesting the war in Ukraine, at great personal risk to themselves, as the Putin government cracks down on all kinds of dissent.

Special correspondent Ryan Chilcote reports from Moscow.

Ryan Chilcote:

From Yekaterinburg, to St. Petersburg, to the capital, Moscow, thousands of Russians across the country sharing one chant, one voice, spilling into streets and city squares, outraged ever since President Vladimir Putin last week ordered a full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

Woman (through translator):

War must be stopped. It must be. It's crazy what's going on right now. We should all shout no to war.

Ryan Chilcote:

Many protesters say they don't want to feel as if they have Ukrainian blood on their hands.

Woman (through translator):

I don't want this war. Almost no one here wants it. I want the whole world to see that we don't want it. We don't want it to weigh on our conscience for decades. I don't want to feel guilty for living here through my whole life.

Ryan Chilcote:

Many Russians see Ukrainians as their brothers and sisters. Plenty have family and friends there.

doesn't want Putin's assault to lead to both countries' destruction.

Olga Mikheeva, Protester (through translator):

It is a crime both against Ukraine and Russia. I think it is killing both Ukraine and Russia.

I am outraged. I haven't slept for three nights, and I think we must now declare very loudly that we don't want to be killed and don't want Ukraine to be killed.

Ryan Chilcote:

But as swiftly as Russians began to decry the conflict, so too came the armed police to strangle the dissent.

One video on social media showed Russian security forces in St. Petersburg roughing up a woman holding a peace sign and a baby. Speaking out risks not only physical harm, but Russian authorities warned protesters could face criminal charges that could mark their records for life.

An independent monitoring group reports that more than 6,000 demonstrators have been arrested. The crackdown also extended online to Facebook, as Russia's state communications regulator announced some restrictions on accessing the platform.

But Facebook and other tech giants, like Apple, Google, and Microsoft, are flexing their muscle on Moscow, limiting the reach of Kremlin-controlled media outlets. And some prominent Russians have been calling for restraint in the war their country started.

Oligarchs like billionaire Oleg Deripaska and steel baron Alexei Mordashov have called for peace. Sanctions are beginning to threaten the Russian economy. Comedian and popular talk-show host Ivan Urgant posted a Black square on Instagram captioned with: "Fear and pain, no to war." His show was then taken off the air. The Russian TV station said removing it had nothing to do with his post.

And last week, tennis star Andrey Rublev, ranked seventh in the world, wrote three words on a camera lens after winning a tournament match: "No war, please." Just the week prior, he had won a doubles title with partner Denys Molchanov, a Ukrainian.

As the condemnations, protests, and crackdowns continue, the Russians, not to mention Ukrainians, are not alone in their outrage. Demonstrations erupted around the world after Putin launched his assault, from the ancient city of Jerusalem to New York City, home of the largest Ukrainian population in the U.S., to Berlin, where more than 100,000 protesters made a show of force.

As more and more countries rally around Ukraine, will Vladimir Putin bow to the international pressure? And inside Russia, how long will the dissent last, and how far is the Kremlin willing to go to drown it out?

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Ryan Chilcote in Moscow.

Judy Woodruff:

And for more on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, plus the reaction and resistance to it, we turn to Dmitri Alperovitch. He's co-founder of the Silverado Policy Accelerator. It's a Washington-based think tank.

Dmitri Alperovitch, welcome back to the "NewsHour."

Give us your sense of the status of the fight right now in Ukraine. We learned this afternoon that the Russians have apparently taken over their first city, Kherson, in the south?

Dmitri Alperovitch, Co-Founder, Silverado Policy Accelerator:

Yes, I would say the results are really mixed.

Obviously their initial plan was widely believed to have been ill-conceived, based on this notion the Ukrainian armed forces would just melt away and they could roll over into Kyiv with minimal forces. That backfired badly.

But now they're regrouping. Now they're doing these major assaults, particularly supported with long-range fires, with artillery, with missiles, with airstrikes, to suppress Ukrainian forces.

And I have to say that they're also making advances on the ground. One of the things that most people don't realize is that they have made a 400-kilometer dash towards Mariupol in the south from Crimea in about five days. Just to compare this to U.S. advances in the Iraq War towards Baghdad, that was a 550-kilometer dash that took two weeks for the U.S. forces to accomplish.

So the Russians are — in some cases, particularly in the south, have a pace of advance that more than twice exceeds what the U.S. forces did back in 2003.

Judy Woodruff:

Interesting. We haven't seen as much reporting from that part of the country.

But you and others were telling — were saying to us and to others just yesterday that the sense had been that the Russian troops were undersupplied, that there was low morale. What was going on there in the beginning?

Dmitri Alperovitch:

Well, that's certainly still the case.

Their logistics are a mess. And that famous 40-kilometer column that is moving towards Kyiv is stuck. It is using roads that are very small, in some cases, two-lane roads. And, of course, if a vehicle breaks down, if it runs out of fuel, the whole column stops. And that's really, really challenging to do. The traffic control management is very complicated when you're moving these massive forces around.

And the Russians are encountering those problems. Morale is bad, in part because they're attacking a country with no pretext. The troops just learned apparently minutes before they were supposed to invade that they were going to invade Ukraine without being told what to do. And Ukraine looks a lot like Russia.

The babushka on the street looks a lot like a soldier's grandmother. So, psychologically, it's also a tough fight for them.

Judy Woodruff:

But now your information is that that's changed, that's changing?

Dmitri Alperovitch:

It is changing, in part because they have suffered significant casualties.

And, look, when your buddy is dying right next to you, you get hardened. And what we're seeing now, unfortunately, is absolute barbarity on the part of the Russian troops. We have seen cases where they have killed civilians, and specifically targeted civilians. We're seeing this indiscriminate fire, as Nick reported, on cities, and I'm afraid that's only going to continue now.

Judy Woodruff:

And compare what they have to what — to the weaponry on the part of the Ukrainians.

We know NATO, the United States have begun, have been supplying some weapons to them, but just how outmatched are the Ukrainians?

Dmitri Alperovitch:

Well, the weapons supplies are really these anti-tank weapons, the Javelins, and some of the weapons the Europeans are providing, the Stinger missiles to take down helicopters. They're going to be very helpful. And the Ukrainians are using them quite effectively.

What they need, though, is more drones. What they need as air defenses to shut down the planes that the Russians are flying, the bomber strikes that they're now doing. And, unfortunately, they don't have that. And they can't get that at this point, at this stage of the war.

Judy Woodruff:

And how much difference is that going to make?

Dmitri Alperovitch:

It's going to make some difference.

But, look if the Russians want to take Kyiv, they're going to be able to take Kyiv. They may do it in the way that they took down Grozny in Chechnya, the capital of Chechnya, back almost 20 years ago, by decimating the city. They obviously did that in Aleppo as well supported by Syrian forces, turning it into complete dust.

Unfortunately, that may be the reality that Kyiv would be facing in the coming weeks.

Judy Woodruff:

And your information from your — the people you're talking to is that the Russians are prepared to resort to those tactics?

Dmitri Alperovitch:

That's their doctrine.

I think everyone expects them to use absolute brutality to accomplish the objective. The problem for Vladimir Putin is that he's committed. He can't pull back. He's already suffered the consequences for this war in terms of the very harsh economic sanctions that have been put on Russia. You're seeing the dissents across all of Russia, really at this point to his rule and to this war.

So he has to finish this and try to get something out of it without pulling back and not being able to say face.

Judy Woodruff:

And how much difference do you think those protests that we just saw in that report from Ryan Chilcote could make for him?

Is he likely to — is that likely to have any bearing on his thinking?

Dmitri Alperovitch:

I don't think it's likely, because they're able to suppress them. The security forces are still squarely on his side.

What I'm looking for is the cracks in the military and the security apparatus, because they're feeling the pressure from the sanctions as well. A lot of them are corrupt. They have a lot of resources overseas. So if they see their own personal savings and their family savings go down the tubes because of what Vladimir Putin is doing, they may very well decide to say it's time for the old man to go, and that's when his regime is really in trouble.

Judy Woodruff:

But at this point, you're saying you don't see that?

Dmitri Alperovitch:

I think it's unlikely.

But the chance is no longer zero. I would have told you a few weeks ago that there is no way this would happen, Judy, but now you're starting to see these cracks. Even the people that have supported Putin for two decades are coming out against this war.

This is not popular at all in Russia.

Judy Woodruff:

Dmitri Alperovitch, we thank you very much.

Dmitri Alperovitch:

Thank you.