Pro-Kremlin activists rally outside embassies

MOSCOW: Pro-Kremlin activists rallied in Moscow Saturday outside embassies of countries considered “unfriendly” by Russia on the ninth anniversary of its annexation of Crimea, a youth movement said.

The pro-Kremlin youth movement “Molodaya Gvardia” (“The Young Guard”) said that over 5,000 people demonstrated outside the embassies of 20 “unfriendly” nations including the United States, France, Germany and Poland. These countries “support Ukraine... and also actively supply lethal weapons to the Ukrainian regime,” they said.

Around 400 activists gathered outside the US embassy in Moscow holding up posters with messages such as “Crimea with Russia forever” or “The United States, you sow death”, an AFP reporter saw.

“With the help of these weapons, peaceful Crimea can be fired upon and already is,” the youth movement´s head Anton Demidov told AFP.

“Those countries that supply lethal weapons, we consider them accomplices of this crime,” he added.

A similar demonstration of some 200 people also took place outside the British embassy, an AFP reporter witnessed.

Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 following a referendum that was denounced by Kyiv and Western capitals. The annexation has triggered a wave of international condemnation and sanctions.