What protest and sanctions looked like on 21 March 2022
A look back at street opposition to the invasion, from Kherson to Berlin and Bulgaria, and a yacht seizure in Gibraltar.
What did opposition to Russia's invasion of Ukraine look like on 21 March 2022? Reports from that day and the days just before it point to protest in several places, alongside a new enforcement step against a sanctioned Russian businessman.
Sanctions reach a superyacht
On 21 March 2022, the Royal Gibraltar Police seized a superyacht docked at the Port of Gibraltar. The vessel belonged to Russian oligarch Dmitry Pumpyansky, who was sanctioned by both the United Kingdom and the European Union.
Resistance in occupied Kherson
On 20 March 2022, residents of Kherson confronted Russian military vehicles and told the crews to go home. The episode was one of many cases of non-violent resistance in occupied Ukrainian towns and cities. Local residents organised protests against the invasion and blocked the movement of Russian military equipment. Later accounts record that the Russian military dispersed such protests, sometimes with live fire, injuring many people and killing some, and that most of the large protests ended in March.
Demonstrations abroad
The same day, anti-war demonstrators held a concert near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, calling for the war to end.
On 19 March 2022, a different kind of protest took place in Bulgaria. An anti-NATO demonstration was held during a meeting between US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov. Its participants opposed Bulgaria selling weapons to Ukraine during the invasion.
A clarification from orbit
Also on 19 March 2022, attention turned to the International Space Station. Russian cosmonauts who had recently arrived there in yellow and blue spacesuits were not showing support for Ukraine. They represented Bauman Moscow State Technical University and its colours.
Taken together, the reports show a conflict contested on several fronts: in the streets of an occupied city, in a European capital, in a debate over arms supplies, and in the enforcement of sanctions.
