‘We cannot wait any longer’

Alexei Navalny, the imprisoned critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, further condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine via Twitter thread on Wednesday, even going so far as to call for Russians across the global community to stage daily protests of the conflict.

“I am from the USSR myself. I was born there. And the main phrase from there – from my childhood – was ‘fight for peace,'” Navalny wrote. “I call on everyone to take to the streets and fight for peace.”

“We cannot wait any longer,” the activist continued. “Wherever you are, in Russia, Belarus, or on the other side of the planet, go to the main square of your city every weekday and at 2 p.m. on weekends and holidays.”

“Each arrested person must be replaced by two newcomers,” Navalny urged. “If in order to stop the war we have to fill prisons and paddy wagons with ourselves, we will fill prisons and paddy wagons with ourselves.”

“Everything has a price, and now, in the spring on 2022, we must pay this price. There’s no one to do it for us. Let’s not ‘be against the war.’ Let’s fight against the war.”

In 2021, Navalny was sentenced to over two years in prison by a Moscow court for alleged parole violations. He is now facing additional fraud charges that could reportedly prolong his sentence by more than 10 years. In 2020, Navalny blamed Putin for poisoning him with a nerve agent.