How protest and pressure spread around the war by 25 March 2022
A look back at the public reactions and sanctions measures reported in the days before 25 March 2022, from occupied Kherson to Berlin and Gibraltar.
What did public opposition to the war look like by 25 March 2022? Reports from the preceding days show resistance inside occupied Ukraine, demonstrations abroad and commercial and legal pressure on Russia, alongside some dissent over arms supplies.
Resistance in occupied towns
On 20 March 2022, residents of Kherson confronted Russian military vehicles and told the crews to go home. It was one of numerous cases of non-violent resistance in occupied Ukrainian towns and cities, where local people organised protests and blocked the movement of Russian military equipment. As the background to these events records, the Russian military dispersed such protests, sometimes with live fire, injuring many and killing some. Most of the large protests ended in March.
Demonstrations abroad
Also on 20 March, anti-war demonstrators held a concert near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to call for an end to the war. Opinion elsewhere was not uniform: on 19 March, an anti-NATO protest took place in Bulgaria during a meeting between U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov. The protesters opposed Bulgaria selling weapons to Ukraine.
Sanctions and business measures
On 21 March, the Royal Gibraltar Police seized a superyacht owned by Russian oligarch Dmitry Pumpyansky at the Port of Gibraltar. He was sanctioned by both the United Kingdom and the European Union. On 23 March, the pharmaceutical company Sanofi suspended deliveries of non-essential drugs to Russia and Belarus, while saying that essential and life-changing medicines and vaccines would still be delivered.
A symbolic misreading
On 19 March, it was clarified that Russian cosmonauts who had recently arrived at the International Space Station in yellow and blue flight suits were not showing support for Ukraine. They were representing Bauman Moscow State Technical University and its colours.
