
Three employees of Russian oil giant Rosneft said they had resisted pressure to attend a celebratory show in a Moscow stadium on Friday to mark the eighth anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
The sources said they were unwilling to take part because they saw the event as an endorsement of the war in Ukraine, which began on Feb. 24 when Russia launched what it calls a "special operation" to disarm and "denazify" its neighbour.