Pro-Kremlin activists held a rally in Moscow on Saturday outside the embassies of countries that Russia considers “unfriendly” on the ninth anniversary of the annexation of Crimea, the youth movement reported.
The pro-Kremlin youth movement Molodaya Gvardia (Young Guard) said more than 5,000 people demonstrated outside the embassies of 20 “unfriendly” countries, including the US, France, Germany and Poland.
These countries “support Ukraine… and also actively supply lethal weapons to the Ukrainian regime,” they said.
About 400 activists gathered outside the US embassy in Moscow, holding placards with messages such as “Crimea with Russia forever” or “United States, you sow death,” an AFP reporter saw.
“With the help of these weapons, you can shell peaceful Crimea, and this is already happening,” the head of the youth movement, Anton Dziamidov, told AFP.
“We consider those countries that supply deadly weapons to be complicit in this crime,” he added.
A similar demonstration involving about 200 people also took place outside the British Embassy, an AFP reporter witnessed.
Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014 after a referendum that Kyiv and Western capitals condemned.
The annexation caused a wave of international condemnation and sanctions.