Primary school kids in Russia have been caged after they took part in an anti-war protest, according to a Kremlin politician.
Ilya Yashin, an opposition member of Russian parliament, described the brutality of the Vladimir Putin regime after he shared an image of what appeared to be three children holding a placard in the rear of a police van.
The distressing image comes as thousands of Russians protested in opposition of the ongoing war in Ukraine, although police are cracking down on street demonstrations.
According to reports nearly 7,000 people have been arrested in as many as 50 different cities across Russia, according to human rights project OVD-Info.
Sharing pictures of the primary school aged children on Twitter, Mr Yashin said: “Nothing out of the ordinary: just kids in paddy wagons behind an anti-war poster. This is Putin’s Russia, folks. You live here.”
One of the children can be seen holding a sign which translates as ‘no to war’.
The Moscow politician, who backs Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, added on Facebook : “The realities of Putin’s Russia, guys.
“I am sure that the Kremlin propaganda will now raise a war: do not involve children in politics! They are to blame!
“I don’t know how these kids ended up at the protest. Maybe they came by themselves, maybe with their parents.
“But in fact, many generations in our country (were) taught from the school bench that the worst thing is war, and the main value is the peaceful sky above the head.
“I remember very well how in my native Tushin school N172 we used to draw anti-war posters and stengazets behind the desk. And that’s ok!
“Children against war is damn normal! Children should absorb anti-war ideas with breast milk. And now this is equal to extremism - and this is madness.”
It comes as a 40 mile-long Russian armoured column closes in on Kyiv as Ukraine ’s troops and citizens brace for a “medieval battle” to the death, report Mirror Online.
Stricken Ukrainian cities were surrounded as Putin ’s tanks and invasion forces tightened their steel noose, barraging civilians and troops with rockets.
UK defence chiefs warned of an ever-increasingly more ruthless Russian assault on Ukraine’s civilians as its commanders became desperate to gain ground.
In another day of bloodshed, missiles hit Kyiv’s TV tower, killing five people and sending black smoke billowing over the capital’s centre- an attack branded “barbaric” by Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry.
Kyiv citizens were ordered to leave or die as Russian forces prepared to launch “precision” strikes against the country’s domestic SBU intelligence agency in the heart of Kyiv.
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