Russian opposition has scheduled a protest rally "Spring" to take place on March 1. When one of its organizers, major opposition figure Boris Nemtsov was assasinated on the night of Feb. 27 it was decided that a memorial march for Nemtsov will take place instead of the rally.
he live stream is available here (Open Russia) and here (Radio Svoboda). Ukrainian English-language TV station Ukraine Today reports about the march.
The march begins on 3 p.m. Moscow time (2 p.m. Kyiv time, or 12 p.m. GMT).
The march has began in central Moscow near Kitay-Gorod metro station. From there the columns of people move towards the Bolshoy Moskvoretskiy Bridge, where Nemtsov was killed.
Various estimations counted up to 50,000 people at the march. According to the White Counter, a group of activists counting the participants, 44,700 people have pased the metal detector frames at the gathering point at Kitay-Gorod as of 16:30 Moscow time, 2.5 hour after the people began arriving at 2 p.m.
A photo from @tikhondzyadko Twitter account shows how many people stay behind the metal detectors, waiting to get to the place of the memorial march as of 4:30 p.m. Moscow time.
Witnesses report of huge lines at the flower-selling stands nearby.
Shortly after 2 p.m., the gathering time, police detained an activist who held a banner reading “Down With Putin’s Autocracy.”
Similar memorial marches are taking place in Saint Petersburg and other big cities. In Voronezh the participants of a memorial march were attacked by opposing activists, who stained them with zelyonka, a bright-green medical solution.
Among many chants at the Moscow march were “Kyiv is our brothers, fascists sit in Kremlin,” “Those bullets hit all of us,” and “Russia without Putin.”
Oleksiy Honcharenko, a member of Ukrainian parliament with the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko, participated in the march and was detained by police, according to his Facebook page. He came to the march wearing a t-shirt with Nemtsov portrait and “Heroes don’t die” written in Ukrainian.
