CHILDREN were among hundreds of anti-war protesters arrested and caged by police in Russia yesterday — as calls grew for an uprising to unseat Vladimir Putin.
Five youngsters aged seven to 11 were detained with their mums for laying colourful hand-drawn banners outside the Ukrainian embassy in the capital Moscow.
State-run TV channels there continued to peddle lies about the atrocities carried out by Putin’s ruthless forces in Ukraine.
And he was accused of turning his country into a devious pariah state like brutal dictator Kim Jong-un’s North Korea.
At least 7,000 have been seized across Russia, including at a march in second-largest city Saint Petersburg, for demonstrating against the invasion since it started a week ago.
Prominent Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, in jail for what he says are trumped-up fraud charges, has called on Russians to stage daily protests — branding Putin “an insane little tsar”.
He wrote on social media: “I am urging everyone to take to the streets and fight for peace.
“I cannot and will not be silent, watching how the pseudo-historical nonsense about the events of 100 years ago became an excuse for Russians to kill Ukrainians, and those, defending themselves, to kill Russians.
“Putin is not Russia. We cannot wait any longer.
“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 2pm on weekends and holidays.”
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He added protesters should not be afraid of going to prison for their views, saying: “Every person arrested must be replaced by two people who have come out. If, to stop the war, we have to stuff the jails and the police vans, we will stuff the jails and the police vans.”
Nearly 2,000 were arrested yesterday alone.
A video shared online showed a small girl in the back of a grey police van crying as she peered through the bars.
She was heard sobbing: “I don’t understand, why are we sitting here?”
An unseen woman was heard consoling her, explaining it was because “many people don’t agree” with her about the war.
Reports in the Russian media said the children and their mothers were released without charge but not before they had been threatened with being separated.
Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin tweeted the images, saying: “Nothing out of the ordinary: just kids in paddy wagons behind an anti-war poster. This is Putin’s Russia, folks. You live here.”
It came as Russia stepped up its misinformation war — with the country’s state-controlled TV channels accusing Ukrainian troops of “preparing to shell residential houses” in what were labelled “acts of provocation against civilians and Russian forces”.
One of them, NTV, labelled the barbaric shelling of the city of Kharkiv by Russian forces “fake”.
The channel’s presenter claimed: “Judging by the trajectory of the missile, the strike was delivered from the north-west where there are no Russian forces.”
A bulletin by the Rossiya 1 channel blamed Ukraine itself for the bombing.
It said: “Ukraine is hitting its own and is lying to the West.”
Putin’s critics said he was turning the country into the “new North Korea”.
Mikhail Kasyanov, prime minister of Russia from 2000 to 2004, said that as life got harder for Russians, so their dictator’s grip on power would weaken.
He commented: “People disagree with the policy but they are scared to go to the streets.
“As soon as weakness appears — I feel it will appear soon — people will come to the streets in hundreds of thousands.”
In a bid to crush dissent, Putin’s allies want to introduce a law that will make it a crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison to spread “fake news” about its military operation in Ukraine.
Vasily Piskarev, an MP with Putin’s United Russia party, said: “These fakes demoralise society and undermine faith in the army and the security services.”
Echo of Moscow, a liberal radio station in the capital, and the online channel TV Rain were both blocked for posting “information calling for extremist activities, violence and deliberately false information about the actions of Russian forces”.
