title: Germanic paganism

text: Physical trees or poles could represent either a world tree, Yggdrasil in Norse mythology, or a world pillar. Modern scholars describe such a sacred tree as an axis mundi ("hub of the world"), a center that runs along and connects multiple levels of the universe while also representing the world itself. In Roman Germania, columns depicting the god Jupiter as a rider are commonly found; they probably have a Celtic background and some connection to the world tree or column. One example of a sacred tree during the Middle Ages is the Oak of Jupiter purportedly felled by Saint Boniface in 724 CE in Hesse. Adam of Bremen mentions a sacred tree at the Temple of Uppsala, but the existence of this tree is controversial among scholars. It is also mentioned in Hervarar saga, and it may have been the central focus at the site and represented the world tree Yggdrasil. A birch root surrounded by animal skulls was excavated at Frösö; this find gives additional support for votive trees. Pagan Anglo-Saxon settlements often contained large standing poles, which were condemned as focuses of pagan worship by 6th-century English bishop Aldhelm. The Irminsul (Old Saxon "great pillar") among the continental Saxons may have also been part of such a pole cult.


title: Germanic paganism

text: Post-conversion Norse texts mention dedicated groups of warriors, some of whom, the (berserkers) and , were associated with bears and wolves respectively. In Ynglinga saga, Snorri Sturluson associates these warriors with Odin. Many scholars argue that warrior bands, with their initiation rites and forms of organization, can be traced to the time of Tacitus, who discusses several warrior bands and societies among the "Germani". These scholars further argue that these bands can be traced further back to Proto-Indo-European precursors to some extent. Other scholars, such as Hans Kuhn, dispute continuity between Norse and earlier warrior bands. Inhumation and cremation graves containing bear claws, teeth, and hides are found throughout the Germanic-speaking area, being especially common on the Elbe from 100 BCE to 100 CE and in Scandinavia from the 2nd to 5th centuries CE; these may be connected to the warrior societies.


title: Germanic paganism

text: Archaeologists have found metal objects, especially on weapons and brooches, decorated with animal art and dating from the 4th to the 12th centuries CE in Scandinavia. Animals depicted include snakes, birds of prey, wolves, and boars. Some scholars have discussed these images as related to shamanism, while others view animal art as similar to Skaldic kennings, capable of expressing both Christian and pagan meanings.


title: Germanic paganism

text: Scholars are divided as to the nature and function of Germanic ritual specialists: many religious studies scholars believe that there was originally no class of priests and cultic functions were mostly carried out by kings and chieftains; many philologists, however, argue on the basis of reconstructed words for "priest" that a specialized class of priests existed. Caesar says the "Germani" had no druids, while Tacitus mentions several priests. Roman sources do not otherwise mention Germanic cultic functionaries. Later descriptions of similar rituals to those mentioned in Tacitus do not mention any ritual specialists; however, it is reasonable to assume that they continued to exist. While ritual specialists in Viking Age Scandinavia may have had defining insignia such as staffs and oath rings, it is unclear if they formed a hierarchy and they seem to have fulfilled non-cultic roles in society as well.


title: Germanic paganism

text: Caesar and Tacitus both mention women engaged in casting lots and prophecy and there are some other indications of female ritual specialists. Tacitus and the Roman writer Cassius Dio (163-c. 229 CE) both mention several seeresses by name, while an ostracon from Egypt attests one living in the second century CE. A female ritual specialist named Gambara appears in Paul the Deacon (8th century). A gap in the historical record occurs until the North Germanic record began over a millennium later, when the Old Norse sagas frequently mention female ritual specialists among the North Germanic peoples, both in the form of prietesses and diviners. Both Tacitus and "Eiríks saga rauða" mention the seeress prophesying from a raised platform, while "Eiríks saga rauða" also mentions the use of a wand.


title: Germanic paganism

text: Some insight into Germanic religion can be provided by burial customs, which varied widely in time and space but nonetheless show a few consistent practices. The Germanic peoples generally practiced cremation until the first century BCE, when limited inhumation burials begin to appear. The ashes were usually placed in an urn, but the use of pits, mounds, and cases when the ashes were left on the pyre after cremation are also known. In Viking Age Scandinavia, as much as half the population may not have received any grave, with their ashes scattered or their bodies unburied. Grave goods, which might be broken and placed in the grave or burnt on the pyre with the body, included clothing, jewelry, food, drink, dishes, and utensils. Beginning in the early 1st century CE, a minority of graves also included weapons. On the continent, inhumation burial becomes the most common form of burial among the southern Germanic peoples by the end of the migration period, while cremation remains more common in Scandinavia. In the Migration period and Merovingian period, the grave was often reopened and these grave gifts removed, either as grave robbery or as part of an authorized removal. By the Merovingian period, most male burials include weapons.


title: Germanic paganism

text: Often, urns were covered with stones and then surrounded by circles of stones. The urns of the dead were often placed in a mortuary house, which may have served as a cultic structure. Cemeteries might be placed around or reuse old Bronze Age barrows, and later placed near Roman ruins and roads, possibly to ease the passing of the dead into the afterlife. Some graves included burials of horses and dogs; horses may have been meant as conveyances to the afterlife. Burials with dogs are found over a wide area through the migration period; it is possible that they were meant either to protect the deceased in the afterlife or to prevent the return of the dead as a revenant.


title: Germanic paganism

text: After 1 CE, inhumation burials in large burial mounds with wooden or stone grave chambers, which contained expensive grave goods and were separate from the normal cemeteries, begin to appear across the entire Germanic area. By the 3rd century, elite burials are attested from Norway to Slovakia, with a large number appearing on Jutland. These graves usually include dishes and tableware: this may have been meant for the deceased to use in the afterlife or may have been used in a funerary meal. In the 400s CE, the practice of erecting elite ("row graves") appears among the continental Germanic peoples: these grave were arranged in rows and contain large amounts of gold, jewelry, ornaments, and other luxury items. Unlike cremation cemeteries, only a few hundred individuals are found buried in Reihengräber cemeteries. Elite chamber graves become especially common in Scandinavia in the 9th and 10th centuries, in which the body of deceased was sometimes buried seated with objects in the hands or on the lap.


title: Germanic paganism

text: Stones set up in the shape of a ship are known from Scandinavia, where they are sometimes surrounded by graves or occasionally contain one or more cremations. The earliest ship burial is found in Jutland from the late Roman Imperial period. Another earlier burial is from outside Scandinavia, near Wremen on the Weser river in northern Germany from the 4th or 5th century CE. Ship burials are attested in England from around 600 CE and from across Scandinavia and areas where Scandinavians traveled beginning around the same time and for centuries afterward. In some cases, the deceased was evidently cremated in the ship before a mound was thrown up over it, as is described by Ahmad ibn Fadlan for the Rus'. Scholars debate the meaning of these burials: the ship may have been a means of transport to the next life or may have represented a feasting hall. Parts of the ships were often left uncovered for extended periods of time.


title: Germanic paganism

text: Various practices for divining the future are attested for Germanic paganism, some of which were likely only practiced in a particular time or place. The main sources on Germanic divination are Tacitus, Christian early medieval texts of the missionary period (such as penitentials and Frankish capitularies), and various texts describing Scandinavian practices; however, the value of all of these sources for genuine Germanic practices is debated.


title: Germanic paganism

text: The casting and drawing of lots to determine the future is well-attested among the Germanic peoples in medieval and ancient texts; linguistic analysis confirms that it was an old practice. As of 2002, about 160 lots made of various materials have been found in Roman-era and migration-period archaeological sites. The most detailed description of Germanic lots is found in Tacitus, "Germania," chapter 10. According to Tacitus, the "Germani" cast lots, made from the wood of fruit-bearing trees and marked with signs, onto a white sheet, after which three lots were drawn by either the head of the family or a priest. While the signs Tacitus mentions have been interpreted as Runes, most scholars believe they were simple symbols. Thirteenth-century Icelandic sources also attest the drawing of lots carved with signs; however, there is debate about whether these late sources represent a form of ordeal that was introduced with Christianity or a continuation of Germanic practice.


title: Germanic paganism

text: Another important form of divination involved animals. The interpretation of the actions of birds is a common practice across the world and is well attested for the "Germani" and the Norse. More uniquely, Tacitus says the "Germani" used the whinnying of horses to divine the future. Although there is no later or corroborating evidence for Tacitus's horse-divination, the importance of horses in Germanic religion is well-attested. Both forms of divination might be connected to the portrayal of birds and horses on gold bracteates.


title: Germanic paganism

text: A few other methods of divination are also attested. Tacitus mentions duels as a method of learning the future; while Norse sources attest many duels, none are obviously used for divination. Roman and Christian sources sometimes claimed that the Germanic peoples used the blood or entrails of human sacrifices to divine the future. This may derive from ancient topoi rather than reality, although blood played an important role in pagan ritual. Norse sources include additional forms of divination such as a form of necromancy known as , as well as seiðr rituals.


title: Germanic paganism

text: The evidence suggests that the Germanic peoples had recurrent sacrifices and festivals at certain times of year. Often these feasts involved sacrifice at communal meals, ritual drinking, as well as processions and divination. Almost all information on Germanic religious festivals concerns Western Scandinavia, but Tacitus mentions a sacrifice to the goddess Tamfana took place in the autumn, while Bede mentions a festival called "Mōdraniht" that occurred in early February, and Jonas of Bobbio's "Life of Saint Columbanus" (640s) mentions a festival to Vodan (Odin) held by the Suebi that involved the drinking of beer. On the basis of several informants and possibly textual sources, Adam of Bremen describes a Swedish sacrificial festival held every nine years at the Temple of Uppsala, while Thietmar of Merseburg mentions a similar festival taking place each January at Lejre in Zealand. The Swedish feast known as took place in February, the same time as the Old English ; the only other widely attested festival is Yule around Christmas. Snorri Sturluson mentions three additional festivals in "Ynglinga saga": a festival at the beginning of winter for a good harvest, one at midwinter for fertility, and one at the beginning of summer for victory. The summer festival is not attested elsewhere, but Rudolf Simek argues that the winter festival was probably in honor of the ancestors while another festival at spring was for fertility.


title: Germanic paganism

text: Magic is an element of religion that intends to influence the world with the help of the otherworldly by using particular rituals, means, or words. Sources on pre-Christian magic among the Germanic peoples are either textual descriptions or archaeological finds of objects. The Germanic languages lack a common word that can be translated as "magic", and there is no indication that the Germanic peoples distinguished between "white" and "black magic". In Norse texts, the god Odin is especially associated with magic, a connection also found, for instance, in the Old High German Second Merseburg Charm. Although runes are often associated with magic, most scholars no longer believe that runes were in and of themselves regarded as magical.


title: Germanic paganism

text: Migration-age inscriptions on bracteates and later rune stones contain a number of early magical words and formulas, the best attested of which, "alu", is found on multiple objects from 200 to 700 CE. Post-conversion Christian sources from continental Europe mention forms of magic including amulets, charms, "witchcraft", divination, and especially weather magic. Old Norse mythology and post-conversion literature also attest various forms of magic, including divination, magic affecting nature (weather or otherwise), spells to make warriors impervious to weapons, spells to strengthen weapons, and spells to harm and distress others.


title: Germanic paganism

text: The term "charm" is used to mean magical poetry, which could be blessings or curses; most attested charms are blessings and seek protection, defense against magic or sickness, and healing; the only form of curses attested outside of literature are calls for death. In Old Norse, a specific meter of alliterative verse was used () and some pre-Christian charms have survived inscribed on metal or bone. Otherwise, few charms are attested in Old Norse outside of literature. Later post-conversion Icelandic charms sometimes mention Odin or Thor, but they may reflect Christian conceptions of magic. Numerous charms are attested in Old High German, but only the Merseburg Charms exist in a non-Christianized form. A similar situation exists in Old English, where over 100 charms are attested, including the "Nine Herbs Charm", which mentions Wodan (Odin).


title: Germanic paganism

text: Ritual processions of the idol of a god in some form of vehicle, usually a wagon, are attested in many religions of Europe and Asia. Various archaeological finds indicate the existence of such rituals in Scandinavia as early as the Bronze Age. Ships may also have been used for processions, such as the ship found at Oberdorla moor in Thuringia from the Migration Period. The processions are usually interpreted as fertility rites. An image of a Viking-age process of some sort, including men, women, and carriages, is provided by the Oseberg tapestry fragments.


title: Germanic paganism

text: The earliest written source for a ritual procession in Germanic religion is in Tacitus's "Germania", chapter 40, when he describes the worship of Nerthus. According to Tacitus, Nerthus's idol is drawn around the land for several days on a cart pulled by cows, before being brought to a lake and cleaned by slaves, who are then drowned in the lake. Tacitus's description is reminiscent of archaeological finds of highly-decorated wagons in water and in burials from southern Scandinavia roughly contemporary to Tacitus. A similar ritual is attested for the Goths, who forced Christians to participate during the Gothic persecution of Christians (369-372 CE), as well as among the Franks by Gregory of Tours, although the latter sets his ritual in pre-Germanic Gaul for an eastern goddess. The Frankish Merovingian kings are also attested as having been carried by an oxcart to assemblies, something reminiscent of Tacitus's description. An extensive description of a ritual procession for the god Freyr is found in the "Flateyjarbók" (1394); it describes Freyr being driven around in a wagon to ensure a good harvest. This and several other post-conversion Scandinavian sources on such processions may derive from oral tradition of the worship of Freyr.


title: Germanic paganism

text: Archaeology provides evidence of sacrificial offerings of various types. Deposits of valuable objects, including of gold and silver, that were buried in the earth are frequently attested for the period of 1-100 CE. While these objects may have been buried with the intention of their being removed again at a later date, it is also possible that they were intended as sacrifices for the gods or for use in the afterlife. Metal objects deposited in springs are attested from Bad Pyrmont and Duchcov, as well as such objects deposited in bogs. There are also examples of hair, clothing, and textiles from c. 500 BCE-200 CE found in Scandinavian wetlands. Gregory of Tours, when describing a Frankish shrine near Cologne, depicts worshipers leaving wooden carvings of parts of the human body whenever they felt pain.


title: Germanic paganism

text: Animal sacrifices are attested by bones in various holy places associated with the Przeworsk culture as well as in Denmark, with animals sacrificed included cattle, horses, pigs, and sheep or goats; there is also evidence for human sacrifice. In Scandinavia, animal bones are often found in bogs and lakes, where a higher proportion of horse bones and young animal bones are found than at settlements. A detailed description of Norse animal sacrifice at Lade is provided by Snorri Sturluson in "Hákonar saga góða", although its accuracy is questionable. Evidence of the sacrifice of objects, humans, and animals is also found in settlements throughout Germania, perhaps to mark the beginning of the construction of a building. Dogs buried under the thresholds of houses probably served as protectors.


title: Germanic paganism

text: Human sacrifices are mentioned periodically by Roman authors, usually to stress elements that they found shocking or abnormal. Individual finds of human bodies in the bogs, representing all ages and both sexes, show signs of violent death and may have been human sacrifices or victims of capital punishment. There are over 100 bog bodies from Denmark alone, attested from the 800 BCE to 200 CE. Human body parts such as skulls are deposited in the same period and as late as 1100 CE. Regularly occurring human sacrifices among the Norse are mentioned by authors such as Thietmar of Merseburg and Adam of Bremen as well as the Gutasaga. An image on the picture stone Stora Hammars I is usually interpreted as depicting a human sacrifice.


title: Germanic paganism

text: Sacrifices of the weapons of defeated enemies have been uncovered in bogs in Jutland as well as in rivers throughout Germania: such sacrifices probably occurred in other parts of Germania on dry land. Tacitus reports a similar sacrifice and destruction of weapons performed in the forest after Arminius's victory over the Romans at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. Large deposits of weapons are attested from 350 BCE to 400 CE, with smaller deposits continuing to be made until 600 CE. Deposits of various sizes were common and often included objects besides weapons, even warships that had been burned and destroyed. They appear to be from a ritual performed over a defeated enemy to commit the weapons to the gods. There is no archaeological evidence for what happened to the warriors who bore the weapons, but Roman sources describe them as being sacrificed as well. A possible exception is the site of Alken Enge bog in Jutland: it contains the crushed and dismembered bodies of about 200 men, aged 13-45 years, who seem to have died on a battlefield. No later Scandinavian sources mention rituals associated with the destruction of weapons, implying that these rites had died out and been forgotten at an early date.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: West Coast hip hop is a regional genre of hip hop music that encompasses any artists or music that originated in the West Coast region of the United States. West Coast hip hop began to dominate from a radio play and sales standpoint during the early to-mid 1990s with the birth of G-funk and the emergence of record labels such as Suge Knight and Dr. Dre's Death Row Records, Ice Cube's Lench Mob Records and the continued success of Eazy-E's Ruthless Records, and others.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: Several events laid the foundations for West Coast hip hop, long before the emergence of West Coast rappers such as Mellow Man Ace, Too Short, Kid Frost, Ice-T and Eazy-E—or even before the emergence of rap itself. According to Syd Caesar, "a cataclysmic event helped give rise to it out West: the Watts riots of 1965." In 1967, Budd Schulberg founded a creative space in Los Angeles entitled Watts Writers Workshop, intended to help the people of the Watts neighborhood and provide a place for them to express themselves freely; one group to emerge from the workshop was the proto-rap group Watts Prophets.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: In the late 1970s in Los Angeles, Alonzo Williams, a young disc jockey from Compton, California formed a partnership with another DJ named Rodger Clayton from Los Angeles, California who created a promotion company called Unique Dreams that would hire Williams to DJ at local events. The two eventually went their separate ways: Williams started a group called the World Class Wreckin' Cru and became the house DJs at a local nightclub called Eve's After Dark while Clayton launched what would perhaps be the foremost successful mobile DJ crew in the region by the name of Uncle Jamm's Army that would host parties by top DJs for thousands of people at large venues. Other smaller DJ and party crews emerged around this time, hoping to establish themselves in the area. Unlike their East Coast counterparts, the Hip-Hop sound emerging from Southern California was more fast-paced and influenced by electronic music. This could be largely credited to the fact that the local West Coast hip-hop scene revolved more around DJing than rapping. A localized dance sub-culture later came out of this party scene, which was highlighted on a national scale on such motion pictures as "Breakin'". Breakdancing, popping and locking gave the Los Angeles music scene some of its earliest credibility outside the region. Further attention came to the West Coast as Uncle Jamm's Army began inviting such well-known East Coast Hip-Hop acts such as Whodini and Run-DMC to their functions.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: Another early landmark occurred in 1981, when Duffy Hooks launched the first West Coast rap label, Rappers Rapp Records, inspired by Sugar Hill Records in New York. Its first act was the duo of Disco Daddy and Captain Rapp, whose debut single was "The Gigolo Rapp" which was also released in 1981. The song became a minor success but failed to gain much radio play. Many other Hip-Hop songs recorded in California were released during the early 1980s, but many of them received little or no radio play. Captain Rapp created the classic West Coast song released in 1983 called,"Bad Times (I Can't Stand It)", which is a politically conscious response to Grandmaster Flash's "The Message" arranged by the legendary production duo of Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis and Rich Cason. Clayton's group, Uncle Jamm's Army, released their first single, "Dial-a-Freak", and in 1984 Egyptian Lover released his "On the Nile" album, which includes the popular 12" single "Egypt Egypt". Members of Uncle Jamm's Army and the World Class Wreckin' Cru, including Dr. Dre, The Unknown DJ, Egyptian Lover, Ice-T and Kid Frost would later go on to help define the early West Coast hip hop sound throughout the 1980s.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: In the same period, the Compton-based former locking dancer Alonzo Williams formed the World Class Wreckin' Cru, which included future N.W.A members Dr. Dre and DJ Yella. Williams also founded Kru-Cut Records and established a recording studio in the back of his nightclub, Eve's After Dark, which was founded in 1979. The club was where local drug dealer Eazy-E and Jerry Heller decided to start Ruthless Records and where Dr. Dre and DJ Yella met the group CIA, which included future N.W.A member Ice Cube, Laylaw, Dr. Dre's cousin Sir Jinx and K-Dee.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: During this period, one of the greatest factors in the spread of West Coast hip hop was the radio station, 1580 KDAY, which was the first radio station in the U.S. to play rap and Hip-Hop 24 hours a day, and radio DJ Greg "Mack Attack" Mack.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: Ice-T is known as one of the pioneers of West Coast Hip Hop and gangsta rap, with songs such as "6 in the Mornin," released in 1986, demonstrating the unique style of the west coast. In 1988, Ice-T released the R&B hit "I'm Your Pusher", and Too Short released album "Life is ・・Too short".


title: West Coast hip hop

text: In 1988, N.W.A's landmark album "Straight Outta Compton" was released. Focusing on life and adversities in Compton, California, a notoriously rough area which had gained a reputation for gang violence, it was released by group member Eazy-E's record label Ruthless Records. As well as establishing a basis for the popularity of gangsta rap, the album drew much attention to West Coast hip hop, especially the Los Angeles scene. In particular, the controversial "Fuck tha Police" and the ensuing censorship attracted substantial media coverage and public attention. Following the dissolution of N.W.A due to in-fighting, the group's members Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and MC Ren would later become platinum-selling solo artists in the 1990s. Ice Cube released some of the West Coast's most critically acclaimed albums, such as 1990's "AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted" and 1991's "Death Certificate", as well as making film and television appearances such as in John Singleton's "Boyz n the Hood" in 1991.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: The early 1990s was a period in which Hip-Hop went from strength to strength. Tupac Shakur's debut album "2Pacalypse Now" was released in 1991, demonstrating a social awareness, with attacks on social injustice such as racism, police brutality, poverty, crime, drug and teenage pregnancy. This album featured 3 singles: "Brenda's Got a Baby", "Trapped" and "If My Homie Calls". "2Pacalypse Now" was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on April 19, 1995. Shakur's music and philosophy was rooted in various philosophies and approaches, including the Black Panther Party, Black nationalism, egalitarianism and liberty. Tupac sold over 75 million records, being regarded as one of the greatest rappers of all time and a pioneer of West Coast rap.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: Also in 1991, Suge Knight founded Death Row Records. In 1992, Dr. Dre released his solo debut, "The Chronic"; this marked the birth of the G-funk sound that became a hallmark of the West Coast sound in the 1990s, with the album's lead single "Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang" peaking at #2 on the US Billboard Hot 100. Other Death Row releases such as Snoop Doggy Dogg's "Doggystyle" (1993), Tha Dogg Pound's "Dogg Food" (1995), and 2Pac's "All Eyez on Me" (1996) became huge sellers and were also critically acclaimed. 2 Pac gained hits California Love" and "Live and Die in LA". Many rappers such as MC Eiht and Compton's Most Wanted, Above The Low, D.O.C., Yo Yo, Da Lench Mob, WC & the Maad Circle from LA, Too Short, Ant Banks, Spice 1 from Oakland, E-40, B-Legit, Celly Cell, Khyree and Ray Luv from Vallejo released rap CDs. Also in the early-to-mid 1990s, the group Cypress Hill made a big impact on the scene with their albums such as their debut studio album of the same name and Black Sunday. They are considered to be among the main progenitors of West Coast rap and hip-hop. Other popular artists and groups from this period include The Pharcyde (known for their albums "Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde" and "Labcabincalifornia"), Souls of Mischief (known for their album "93 'til Infinity"), Ahmad (known for his song Back in the Day), Xzibit (known for his album "At the Speed of Life") and Ras Kass (known for his album "Soul on Ice").


title: West Coast hip hop

text: The popularity of Hip-Hop was undoubtedly assisted by the ensuing feud between Death Row Records and the East Coast's Bad Boy Records, fronted by Puff Daddy and The Notorious B.I.G. The east–west feud gained particular traction when Shakur was shot on November 30, 1994 outside Quad Recording Studios in New York, coincidentally where Biggie Smalls and Puff Daddy had been recording that day, which led Shakur to accuse them of setting him up. Tensions rose to their highest at the Source Awards in 1995, with artists from both sides making indirect comments about the other.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: The drive-by shooting of Tupac Shakur on September 7, 1996 which led to his death almost a week later due to his injuries on September 13, 1996 was a major turning point for Hip-Hop as a whole. Shakur had been one of the West Coast's most popular rappers and among the most critically acclaimed. After his death and Suge Knight's incarceration, Death Row Records - once home to the majority of the West Coast's mainstream rappers - fell into obscurity in 1997. The death of the East Coast rapper and former Tupac adversary, The Notorious B.I.G, concluded the west–east feud that had riddled Hip-Hop throughout the 1990s. The West Coast scene slowly started to fade from the mainstream, and rap fans moved towards the East Coast and Southern scene. Fans loved 1990s rapper such as Nas and the Wu-Tang Clan. In addition, Southern hip hop acts like Master P and Three 6 Mafia reached the mainstream in the early 2000s and, arguably, Atlanta's rap scene became the most popular in the country with the rise of crunk in 2003–2004.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: West Coast hip hop's position in the mainstream dwindled greatly in the late 1990s and 2000s, with a few notable exceptions such as Dr. Dre's "2001", Xzibit's "Restless", Snoop Dogg's "No Limit Top Dogg" and "Tha Last Meal" albums. However, the trend soon changed. Although gangsta rap was still popular on the West Coast in the 2000s, the West Coast sound became more designed for nightclubs with the rise of the Bay Area's hyphy scene, featuring flamboyant raps and explicit references to sex and drugs. A key artist in the genre was E-40, who found a substantial audience with his 1995 album "In a Major Way"; he found even greater success with the song "Tell Me When to Go" in 2006, featuring Oakland rapper Keak da Sneak.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: Bay area rapper Too Short, already well known for his collaborations with artists such as Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G, found a new lease on life with the hyphy scene, his 16th studio album "Blow the Whistle" in 2006 debuting at number 14 on the "Billboard" 200. The Game also brought attention back to the West Coast with his double platinum album, "The Documentary", as did Xzibit's platinum certified "Restless" album, and gold certified albums "Man vs. Machine" and "Weapons of Mass Destruction". Artists from the 1990s such as Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube and groups such as the Tha Dogg Pound and Westside Connection continued to release albums throughout the 2000s and had success but did not garner the same level of fame as they had experienced in the 1990s. Throughout the 2000s, a number of peripheral West Coast hip hop artists such as Ya Boy, Glasses Malone, Juice, SKG (Suge Knight Girl) Helecia Choyce, Crooked I, 40 Glocc, Slim the Mobster, Bishop Lamont and Mistah F.A.B. collaborated with big-name artists such as Dr. Dre, Kurupt, Daz Dillinger, The Game, E-40 and Snoop Dogg.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: In the early to mid-2010s, the West Coast had also seen a resurgence with hyphy as well as a transition to an uptempo and club-oriented type of Pop Rap.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: Producer DJ Mustard had pioneered the "ratchet" music movement, a production style that has snowballed into the mainstream. DJ Mustard played a role in bringing West Coast hip hop back to national attention through the 2010s. He gained huge popularity throughout 2011 to 2014, producing a number of popular artists' singles, including Tyga's "Rack City", 2 Chainz's "I'm Different", Young Jeezy's "R.I.P.", B.o.B's "HeadBand", YG's "My Nigga" and "Who Do You Love?", Ty Dolla Sign's "Paranoid", Kid Ink's "Show Me" and Trey Songz's "Na Na". Mustard also released his debut mixtape, "Ketchup", in 2013, further solidifying his ratchet sound, which follows its G-funk and hyphy predecessors.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: Other more peripheral acts that achieved moderate, cult following success in the mainstream include Lil B, who built a strong fan base via social media outlets such as Twitter, YouTube, and MySpace, and has recorded both solo and with The Pack.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: As a result, with the resurgence of hyphy and the progression of the ratchet movement through the 2010s, the West Coast has spawned commercially successful rappers such as G-Eazy, Tyga, Jay Rock, Droop-E, Sage the Gemini and Iamsu! of The HBK Gang, YG, Kid Ink, Nipsey Hussle, Dom Kennedy, Ty Dolla Sign, DJ King Assassin, Dizzy Wright and Problem. During the same time, alternative rap acts have also begun to gain traction along the West Coast hip hop scene such as Tyler, the Creator and his Odd Future collective. In addition, Hip-Hop artists who are more socially conscious and focus more on the lyrical aspects of Hip-Hop have also risen from crews such as solo acts Hopsin and group acts such as Black Hippy, entering the mainstream and releasing a number of critically acclaimed and commercially successful albums.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: Odd Future achieved success with their album in 2012 called, "The OF Tape Vol. 2", which peaked at #5 on the US Billboard 200 and #1 on both the US "Billboard" Independent Albums and Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts. Artists from the group such as Tyler, the Creator, Earl Sweatshirt and Frank Ocean also achieved solo success with their own albums with Tyler, The Creator and Frank Ocean getting nominated for multiple Grammys.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: That same year, Black Hippy's own Kendrick Lamar 2012 release, "Good Kid, M.A.A.D City", was met with rave reviews and was featured on many critics' end-of-year lists. The album was nominated Album of the Year at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards, marking the first time any West Coast hip hop was nominated for award. In 2014, "Schoolboy Q" debuted at no.1 on the "Billboard" 200 with 139,000 copies sold. YG's "My Krazy Life" debuted at #2 on the US "Billboard 200" with 61,000 copies sold.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: In 2018, a multiple Grammy nominated artist under Aftermath named Anderson .Paak, released his third studio album called, "Oxnard", which achieved success and peaked at #11 on the US Billboard 200 and #6 on the US "Billboard" Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts.


title: West Coast hip hop

text: In 2020, Saweetie released "Tap In" which reached the top twenty on the "Billboard" Hot 100 charts. The song was influenced by Bay Area hip hop and sampled Too Short's song "Blow the Whistle".


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, anti-war demonstrations and protests broke out across Russia. As well as the demonstrations, a number of petitions and open letters have been penned in opposition to the war, and a number of public figures, both cultural and political, have released statements against the war.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: The protests have been met with widespread repression by the Russian authorities. According to OVD-Info, at least 14,906 people were detained from 24 February to 13 March. Human rights organisations and reporters have raised concerns of police brutality during arrests and OVD-Info reported several cases of protestors being tortured under detention. The government has also moved to crack down on other forms of opposition to the war, including introducing widespread censorship measures. Other individuals who signed anti-war petitions have faced reprisals. After Putin announced a partial mobilization of Russia's military reserves on 21 September, over 2,000 people were detained in mass street protests in the following days.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On the afternoon of the invasion, the Investigative Committee of Russia issued a warning to Russians that they would face legal repercussions for joining unsanctioned protests related to "the tense foreign political situation". The opposition activist Marina Litvinovich called on Instagram for street protests on the evening of 24 February but was detained by police as she left her house. That evening, thousands took to the streets in cities across Russia to protest the war. The largest demonstrations were in Moscow, where 2,000 protesters gathered near Pushkinskaya Square, and Saint Petersburg, where up to 1,000 protesters gathered. Hundreds demonstrated in Yekaterinburg, and there were also demonstrations in Chelyabinsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk and Perm, including other cities. By the end of the evening of the day of the invasion, according to the OVD-Info monitor, there had been 1,820 arrests in 58 cities, of which 1,002 were carried out in Moscow. Russia's interior ministry justified these arrests with "coronavirus restrictions, including on public events".


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On the following day, 25 February, further protests had continued in Moscow, Saint Petersburg and other cities. In Saint Petersburg several hundred people gathered in the city center, chanting 'No to war!' OVD-Info reported 437 detentions in 26 Russian cities on that day, including 226 in Moscow and 130 in Saint Petersburg.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 26 February, some Russian protestors chose to reduce the chances of arrest by staging single-person protests in Moscow and other city squares. Others gathered in small groups to move more nimbly around the streets. In Yekaterinburg, hundreds gathered, shouting 'No to war!'. Throughout the day at least 469 people were arrested in 34 cities, of which around half in Moscow, bringing the total number of arrests to over 3,000.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Protests continued on 27 February. The protests coincided with the seventh anniversary of the murder of the opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, and arrests took place at an improvised memorial outside the Kremlin where Nemtsov was shot. Around 1,000 people gathered for a spontaneous anti-war rally near Great Gostiny Dvor in Saint Petersburg. According to OVD-Info, by early Sunday evening, police had detained at least 900 Russians in 44 cities, bringing the total number of arrests to over 4,000 since the war had begun. By the end of the day, that number had grown to around 2,710 arrests (at least 5,844 in total since the beginning of the war), including at least 1,269 arrests in Moscow and 1,034 in Saint Petersburg. Members of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the People's Freedom Party, and Yabloko, spoke out against the invasion. On the same day, a van with markings that read "People, wake up!", "This is war", "Putin is scum!" in Russian crashed and caught fire in Pushkinskaya Square.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 1 March, reports and photographs appeared in social media, also republished and confirmed by "Novaya Gazeta", showing primary school children behind bars, arrested by police in Moscow for laying flowers at the Ukrainian embassy and holding signs saying the repeated "No to war". A special detention center set up in Yekaterinburg ran out of room for prisoners arrested from protests.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 2 March, the artist Yelena Osipova, aged 77 and born to survivors of the Siege of Leningrad, was among those arrested at an anti-war protest in Saint Petersburg. Videos of her arrest were widely shared on social media platforms Twitter and Reddit. Police action against the protesters continued on the following day.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 4 March, the activist Yulia Galyamina was detained and held in custody pending trial, charged with violating the law on public events by trying to organise an anti-war protest.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 5 March, ahead of protests planned for 6 March, police raided, searched and detained hundreds of Russian journalists, politicians and activists.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 6 March, there were protests in at least 60 cities, including Vladivostok, Irkutsk and Khabarovsk. OVD-Info reported over 5,000 arrests throughout the day. The Russian interior ministry reported over 3,500 detentions. A video showing Kemerovo Oblast governor Sergey Tsivilyov attempting to justify the invasion to protestors that day went viral. The total number of arrests reached 13,000 overall on 6 March.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 8 March, International Women's Day, the Feminist Anti-War Resistance group reported that women laid flowers at war monuments across 94 Russian and international cities, including Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Vladivostok, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Kanash, Yaroslavl, Syktyvkar, Smolensk, Luga, Lytkarino, Izhevsk, Volgograd, Irkutsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Ufa, Omsk, Mytishchi, Gelendzhik, Perm, Kazan, Zelenograd, Balashov, Saratov, Biysk, Khimki, Chelyabinsk, Krasnodar, Novovoronezh, Vologda, Korolev, Troitsk, Serpukhov, Vladimir, Revda, Tolyatti, Kaliningrad, Naberezhnye Chelny, Volgodonsk, Ramenskoye, Samara, Leninavan farm, Stavropol, Arkhangelsk, Yoshkar-Ola, Krasnogorsk , Novokuibyshevsk, Zheleznovodsk, Murom, Snegiri, Nakhabino, Rostov-on-Don, Cheboksary, Saransk, Dzerzhinsky, Veliky Novgorod, Tyumen, Tobolsk, Podolsk, Tula, Grebnevo village, Dolgoprudny, Murino, Vladikavkaz and Alagir. Police ordered the women laying flowers at the Gostiny Dvor in Saint Petersburg to disperse, and made over five arrests. In Moscow the Alexander Garden was closed to block access to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, so flowers were left nearby. 11 girls were detained in Moscow's Manezhnaya Square. At least 93 people, at least 60 of them in Moscow, were detained.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 15 March, Anastasia Parshkova was arrested for standing alone before the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow with a placard bearing the words "6th Commandment. Don't Kill". She was taken to the police station, according to the Avtozak Live telegram channel.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: The art historian Maria Silina has characterized Parshkova's action – redeploying symbols of the Russian Orthodox Church to critique the alliance between Orthodox religion and military ideology – as an example of détournement typical of contemporary feminist art activism in Russia.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: In the week following International Women's Day, several videos went viral on social media showing Russian police arresting protestors for simply holding up a blank sign. Another arrest which went viral was that of a woman arrested for holding up a small sign that simply read "два слова" ("two words" in Russian).


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: By the end of March, mass protests were reported to have largely subsided due to repression from Russian authorities. Some smaller individual acts of opposition against the war continued.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: In Sochi, Diana Isakova and other activists prepared flyers with QR codes that led to an online text "Time to change!" written by Isakova, criticising Putin as a dictator and calling for citizens to organise and carry out nonviolent resistance against the Putin government. On 17 April, Isakova and her colleagues distributed the flyers. Isakova was later arrested but was not prosecuted.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: The audience staged an anti-war protest at the concert of the Russian group in Saint Petersburg in May.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Unconfirmed reports circulated about a protest planned for 12 June, Russia Day, which eventually did not take place. Instead, authorities in Moscow detained 50 people, using facial recognition software.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 21 September, the Vesna movement called for country-wide demonstrations in response to Putin's announcement of partial mobilization of Russia's military reserves, following setbacks for the Russian military during the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kharkiv oblast. Multiple small-scale protests followed in several Russian cities, including Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk and Tomsk. More than 1,311 protesters in 38 cities had been detained by the end of the day, according to OVD-Info.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 24 September, anti-mobilization rallies organized by Vesna took place in many Russian cities. The rallies were marked by mass detentions not only of protesters, but also of ordinary passers-by. According to OVD-Info, more than 750 people were detained by 22:30 Moscow time.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 25 September, the women of Yakutsk went to a rally under the slogans "We will not give up our husbands", "No to genocide", "No to war". People gathered in , a traditional round dance symbolising the blessing of mothers for the safe return of their husbands and sons. The women were soon dispersed by the security forces. On the same day, residents of Endirey, Khasavyurtovsky District of Dagestan, took part in a rally against mobilization. The police fired live rounds into the air in an attempt to disperse the rally.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: In the evening of 25 September, a rally was held in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan. At the rally, protesters clashed with the police, who in turn opened fire into the air. By the end of the day, the protest was dispersed by Rosgvardia troops.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: As well as protests, activists have also posted anti-war stickers around neighbourhoods, have written anti-war messages on banknotes, and have hung posters that mimic official missing person posters, but that instead contain information about Russian soldiers that have been killed in the invasion. The artist Alexandra Skochilenko was arrested for allegedly replacing supermarket labels with messages protesting the Mariupol theatre airstrike, and jailed for eight weeks pending trial under the Russian fake news laws.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: In Voronezh and Lukhovitsy, cases of arson of military enlistment offices and police departments in Krasnoyarsk and Smolensk were recorded. Molotov cocktails were used in all of them. As of beginning-June, at least 15 cases of arson directed at military recruitment centres had been recorded. On 24 March, a video was released on TikTok showing a protestor throwing Molotov cocktails at the Moscow Kremlin walls. On 28 March, Moscow student Anastasia Levashova was sentenced to two years in prison for having thrown a Molotov cocktail at police during an anti-war rally.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: At least four teachers have been arrested after criticising the invasion in their classrooms. On 3 March, the Russian Ministry of Education instructed teachers to hold lessons telling students "why the liberation mission in Ukraine is a necessity." On 20 March, six women blocked traffic on a bridge in Zelenchukskaya demanding information about their relatives who had been sent to fight in Ukraine. All six were arrested.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 14 March, Marina Ovsyannikova, an editor at Channel One Russia, disrupted the set of the channel's main news program "Vremya" during prime time by holding up a sign with an anti-war message. The sign read: "NO WAR. Stop the war. Do not believe the propaganda, here you are being lied to. Russians against war". Ovsyannikova, the daughter of a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother, also released a pre-recorded video at OVD-Info in which she expressed shame for her part in spreading "Kremlin propaganda" at Channel One. She was detained by police later that evening and was released, according to TASS. Ovsyannikova was detained and later released again on 17 July after staging a lone protest at the , in front of the Kremlin, two days prior.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Others have taken to attempt to remove symbols of pro-Russian actions, such as the letter Z. A man, who later fled to Armenia, reportedly stopped a car with the letter Z on its windscreen with a shovel and ordered the car's inhabitants to rip it off.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 26 September, a gunman opened fire at a draft office in Irkutsk Oblast, injuring one senior official.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Some Russian soldiers have been reported to have disobeyed orders to join the invasion. On 12 March, it was reported that around 80 marines had refused to fight after being deployed to Kherson and were returned to Crimea. On 7 April, Pskov newspaper Pskovskaya Gubernia reported that around 60 Russian paratroopers in Belarus had refused such orders, further reporting that Russian commanders were blocking attempts by soldiers to resign from the Russian Armed Forces and referring those soldiers to prosecutors instead.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Among service personnel who have refused to conduct hostilities against Ukraine include 11 OMON fighters from Khakassia [271], about 100 OMON fighters from Omsk [272], as well as servicemen of the 15th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment, the 9th Guards, 165th and 227th Artillery Brigades, the 15th Separate Peacekeeping, 25th Guards, 38th, 64th, 74th Guards, 80th, 138th and 200th Separate Motor Rifle Brigades, 5th and 71st Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigades, 54th and 95th Control Brigades, 6th Regiment of NBC Protection, 51st Separate Logistics Brigade, 69th Separate Covering Brigade, 108th and 247th Guards Air Assault Regiments, 810th Separate Guards Naval Infantry Brigade stationed in the Crimea, commanders at different ranks of the 3rd Motor Rifle Division, and the personnel of two battalion tactical groups of the 4th Guards Military Base from South Ossetia which has been deployed with the 58th Combined Arms Army. On 30 March 2022, South Ossetian social media channels, local bloggers, and politicians such as the former de facto president Eduard Kokoity reported that many Ossetian servicemen — up to 300, according to one source — had abandoned the Ukrainian battlefields, returning home "of their own free will".


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: In the weeks preceding the invasion, there were signs that anti-war sentiment was growing in Saint Petersburg. At the beginning of February, over 150 prominent Russian activists, authors, and academics signed an open letter, 'If Only There Is No War!', protesting the "party of war in the Russian leadership" and state media.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: After the invasion, Russian Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov announced that the "Novaya Gazeta" newspaper would publish its next edition in both Ukrainian and Russian. Muratov, the journalist Mikhail Zygar, the film director Vladimir Mirzoyev, and others signed a document stating that Ukraine is not a threat to Russia and calling for Russian citizens "to say no to this war." The "Kommersant" reporter Elena Chernenko launched an anti-war petition, which was signed by over 250 journalists. Another letter condemning the war was signed by over 250 scientists, and a third open letter was signed by almost 200 municipal council members in Moscow and other cities. On 24 February, human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov started an online petition to protest against the invasion, garnering 289,000 signatures by the end of the day. By 1 March, the petition had gathered more than a million votes. On 26 February, a petition for the impeachment of Putin was published by a Russian citizen on the Change.org website, gathering more than 200,000 signatures by the end of 27 February. Some of the petition signers lost their jobs.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: More than 30,000 technology workers, 6,000 medical workers, 3,400 architects, more than 4,300 teachers, more than 17,000 artists, 5,000 scientists, and 2,000 actors, directors, and other creative figures signed open letters calling for Putin's government to stop the war. Some Russians who signed petitions against Russia's war in Ukraine lost their jobs.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: 1,200 students, faculty and staff of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, signed an open letter stating that they "consider it morally unacceptable to stay on the sidelines and keep silent when people are dying in a neighboring state. They are dying through the fault of those who preferred weapons instead of peaceful diplomacy. ... Many generations of future diplomats will have to rebuild the trust in Russia and the good relations with our neighbors that have been lost."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Igor Kochetkov, the head of the Russian LGBT Network, launched an open letter against the war and stating that "There are a lot of problems in our country, including the spread of anti-human ideas, which often come from high-ranking officials. Let's start 'denazification' with them." The open letter received signatures from 150 Russian LGBT+ rights activists.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: The Feminist Anti-War Resistance campaign, one of the first founded in opposition to the war, launched with a manifesto saying that "war exacerbates gender inequality and sets back gains for human rights by many years" and that the war was being "fought under the banner of the "traditional values" declared by government ideologues," which were contrary to human rights and liberation.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Representatives of Russian arts and culture workers initiated an open letter expressing solidarity with the Ukrainian people and protesting against the war. As of 23:00 Moscow time on 27 February 2022, the letter was signed by 17,000 people.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Lev Ponomaryov initiated a petition titled "" ("Stop the war with Ukraine! – No to war"). By 4 March, the petition had been signed by more than 1.18 million Russians.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: "No to war!" (, ) is an anti-war slogan used by the demonstrators in the 2022 anti-war protests in Russia. Children also used this slogan on handmade signs and tried to leave their message outside the Ukrainian embassy in Moscow. They were arrested for those actions.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Relatives of some Russian officials who justify Russia's war against Ukraine have also expressed their disagreement with the Kremlin's decision through the hashtag "No to war!". Among them was Liza Peskova, the daughter of the official representative of the Kremlin Dmitry Peskov.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: The white-blue-white flag is an anti-war symbol created by removing the red from the Russian flag. According to anti-war protestors, the red represented blood and violence, and the flag attempts to evoke the legacy of the Novgorod Republic as an example of democracy. However, not all protesters appreciated the flag. Maria Motuznaya (an opposition activist) had criticised the justification for the removal red stripe of the flag.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Both the Russian United Democratic "Yabloko" Party and the Party of People's Freedom condemned the impending invasion of Ukraine several days before February 24, 2022. Both of these parties opposed the illegal annexation of Crimea and hold moderately pro-Ukrainian positions. The Yabloko party published a petition demanding the withdrawal of troops from the Ukrainian-Russian border on February 13, 2022. Although the party continues to legally exist, dozens of Yabloko members, politicians, and activists have been arrested or detained since February 24.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) officially supports the invasion and is often characterized as a controlled opposition to Putin's government, however, some youth and left-wing factions within the party have opposed the war. The only two members of the State Duma to have spoken against the war have been KPRF deputies: Mikhail Matveyev and Oleg Smolin. KPRF senator Vyacheslav Markhayev has also spoken against the war. On 27 May 2022, two KPRF lawmakers from the Legislative Assembly of Primorsky Krai were kicked out of the oblast's KPRF group and two others were reprimanded by the party after presenting a statement in opposition to the war. Another faction associated with the International Marxist Tendency face expulsion from the party after organising an anti-war committee called "KPRF/LKSM Members Against the War."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On February 15, the website of Russian political party New People, which is also known as a controlled opposition and a spoiler party, released a statement by Sardana Avksentyeva, condemning the war. After the start of the invasion, leader of the party, Alexey Nechayev, made statements in support of military action. Avksentyeva's anti-war statement was deleted, and she herself later supported the invasion: "And I feel that today we must give our military an opportunity to complete their work... We need the victory".


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: However, one of the New People deputies of the State Duma, Sangadji Tarbaev, has publicly condemned the war. Valery Gartung, also a State Duma deputy and a member of A Just Russia — For Truth party (which supports the invasion), also denounced it in Facebook, and later commented his post to Republic.ru.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Mikhail Gorbachev, the last CPSU General Secretary and the head of state of the Soviet Union, stated that "everything possible must be done to stop the threat of a nuclear war". On 26 February, the Gorbachev Foundation stated: "In connection with Russia's military operation in Ukraine, begun on February 24, we affirm the need for an early cessation of hostilities and immediate start of peace negotiations. There is nothing more precious in the world than human lives."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 27 February, Russian politician Lyudmila Narusova, a member of the Federation Council, stated in a television interview: "I do not identify myself with those representatives of the state that speak out in favor of the war. I think they themselves do not know what they are doing. They are following orders without thinking." Arkady Dvorkovich, who served as a Deputy Prime Minister from 2012 to 2018, condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine and said that "Wars are the worst things one might face in life...including this war. My thoughts are with Ukrainian civilians." On 23 March, Putin's longtime advisor and Russian climate envoy Anatoly Chubais resigned from his position and left Russia due to his opposition to the war.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader who was imprisoned in January 2021, called Putin an "obviously insane tsar" and urged Russians to continue daily street protests: "Go out onto the main square of your city every weekday at 19.00 and at 14.00 at weekends and on holidays". Later, he called out Putin's partial mobilization order by comparing the recruitment of prisoners to the fictional Suicide Squad, asking "What an army made of murderers, robbers, brigands could accomplish in combat?"


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Other groups which have expressed their opposition to the war include the Revolutionary Workers Party, the Libertarian Party of Russia, Socialist Alternative, the Pirate Party of Russia, the United Communist Party, the Left Bloc and Autonomous Action.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Ukrainian-born Russian politician and diplomat Natalia Poklonskaya, who rose to prominence during Russia's annexation of Crimea, called the invasion a catastrophe, also adding "People are dying, houses and entire cities are destroyed [leaving] millions of refugees. Bodies and souls are mutilated. My heart is bursting with pain. My two native countries are killing each other, that's not what I wanted and it's not what I want". She also said that Ukraine's society has "changed" in the eight years since the war in Donbas with pro-Russian separatists was ongoing and that Ukrainians "would not greet Russia with flowers". She also criticized the Z military symbol. According to "The Moscow Times", Poklonskaya's break with Russia's official line that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a "special military operation" to "de-Nazify and demilitarize" Ukraine was practically unheard of for a sitting official.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 23 May, Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev announced that he had resigned from his position in protest over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, referring to the invasion as an "aggressive war", saying that it was not only a crime against the Ukrainian people, but also "the most serious crime against the people of Russia, with a bold letter Z crossing out all hopes and prospects for a prosperous free society in our country".


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 9 September, seven council members from Smolninsky District Council in St. Petersburg passed a resolution which called on the State Duma to impeach president Putin for "high treason" due to his handling of the war in Ukraine. Subsequently, these council members have been arrested by police “due to actions aimed at discrediting the current Russian government.” Dmitry Palyuga, a councillor, published a resolution on Twitter which accuse Putin of: "(1) the decimation of young able-bodied Russian men who would serve the workforce better than the military; (2) Russia's economic downturn and brain drain; (3) NATO's expansion eastward, including adding Finland and Sweden to "double" its border with Russia; (4) the opposite effect of the "special military operation" in Ukraine." Likewise, a similar resolution was debated and passed by Moscow's Lomonosovsky District Council.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: After the invasion began on 24 February, several Russian celebrities, including pop star Valery Meladze, television host Ivan Urgant and television presenter Ksenia Sobchak, unambiguously criticized it on social media. The comedian and television presenter Maxim Galkin and television comedian also condemned the war, as did actress Chulpan Khamatova and actor Konstantin Khabensky. Vlogger Yury Dud received a million 'likes' for a post criticising the war:


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Ukrainian-born pop star Svetlana Loboda asked "How is this possible? Lord, stop all this!" Figure skater Evgenia Medvedeva called for "this all [to end] as soon as possible, like a bad dream". Chess player Yan Nepomniachtchi tweeted in protest: "History has seen many Black Thursdays. But today is blacker than the others. #saynotowar". Tennis world number one Daniil Medvedev and world number seven Andrey Rublev both spoke out in favour of peace on the day of the invasion. On the following day Rublev wrote "No war please" on the camera after winning his match. The hip-hop artist Oxxxymiron cancelled upcoming shows and called for mass protest, calling the invasion "a crime and a catastrophe". Yelena Kovalskaya resigned as director of the state-owned Meyerhold Theater Center, writing that it was "impossible to work for a murderer and receive salary from him".


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Pianist and composer Evgeny Kissin described Russia's invasion as a crime that cannot be justified. The pianist Alexander Melnikov said "I'm furious with [Putin's government] for making me feel guilty about being Russian." Pop singer Sergey Lazarev called for the war to stop.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 25 February, the ice hockey star Alex Ovechkin, an ardent Putin supporter, made an ambiguous statement against the war without mentioning Ukraine or Russia. On 26 February, Georgian basketball player Tornike Shengelia announced he was prematurely terminating his contract with CSKA Moscow "in protest against Russia's invasion of Ukraine". Citing the club's historical links to the Red Army, Shengelia said: "I do not consider it possible to continue playing for the Russian army club".


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Liza Peskova, the daughter of Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, shared an image of the "No to war" hashtag on her Instagram story but then quickly deleted it and criticized the protests. Russia's richest billionaire, Mikhail Fridman, called for the "bloodshed to end". Another oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, called for peace talks to begin "as fast as possible." An anonymous Russian billionaire told Reuters, "It is going to be catastrophic in all senses: for the economy, for relations with the rest of the world, for the political situation." Russian billionaire and owner of the REN TV television network Alexei Mordashov spoke out against both the fighting and the economic fallout that has resulted from it. "It is terrible that Ukrainians and Russians are dying, people are suffering hardships, the economy is collapsing. We must do everything necessary so that a way out of this conflict is found in the very near future and the bloodshed stops in order to help the affected people restore normal life."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: By 27 February, several prominent Russian public figures living in exile had organized the Anti-War Committee of Russia. The group issued a statement denouncing the war and calling on "patriots of Russia to consolidate against the aggressive dictatorship of Vladimir Putin."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Mikhail Shishkin, winner of the 2000 Russian Booker Prize, wrote on "The Guardian" that "Putin is committing monstrous crimes in the name of my people, my country, and me" and saying that "in Putin's Russia it's impossible to breathe. The stench from the policeman's boot is too strong."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Actor Danila Kozlovsky posted several Instagram posts condemning the war, sharing an image of a crying refugee and using the ""Нет войне!""-hashtag. In a post on 27 February, Kozlovsky admitted to and apologized for his indifference to Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 21 March, rock musician Zemfira released an anti-war music video to her 2017 song "Don't Shoot", while also removing all of her other songs from her YouTube channel. The video contained footage of Russia's military assault on Ukraine and of anti-war protests in Moscow.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: In May 2022, rock singer Yuri Shevchuk was prosecuted after speaking out against Putin and the war in Ukraine at a concert in Ufa. He said that "people of Ukraine are being murdered" and "our boys are dying over there" due to "some Napoleonic plans of another Caesar of ours". In September, singer Alla Pugacheva spoke out against the invasion, writing that Russians were dying in Ukraine for “illusory goals”, and that the invasion was “turning our country into a pariah and worsening the lives of our citizens.”


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: The founders of the "Immortal Regiment" commemoration movement, in which ordinary Russians carry photographs of veteran family members in marches around Russia held annually to mark WWII Victory Day on 9 May, addressed Vladimir Putin in a statement, asking him to "stop the bloodshed". Svetlana Golub, head of the Union of the Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia told The Guardian that "Wars always lead to deaths. From the many conversations I have been sent between soldiers and their families, I believe many Russians have already died... Conflicts always mean lots of suffering. Please, both sides have to stop."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Memorial, the oldest human rights organization in Russia, which has been repressed against by the Russian government and forced to shut down in 2021, described the invasion as "a crime against peace and humanity" in a statement, adding that it "will remain a shameful chapter in the Russian history."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 3 March, the multinational company Lukoil, the second largest company in Russia after Gazprom, called for a ceasefire and diplomatic means to solve the conflict.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: A spokesperson for the United Nations condemned the "arbitrary arrests" of protestors, and called for their immediate release. On 8 March, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet expressed concerns over "the use of repressive legislation that impedes the exercise of civil and political rights and criminalising non-violent behaviour."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 26 February, Human Rights Watch stated that videos of the crack down it analysed showed "brutal arrests of peaceful activists by police officers" and stated that "authorities' actions to prevent people from participating in peaceful public protests and freely expressing their opinions violate fundamental rights." On 3 March, it stated that the Russian government had blocked access to at least eight independent Russian media outlets, along with a number of Ukrainian media outlets, and that it was "bluntly imposing censorship combined with a false narrative that they demand everyone must parrot." Amnesty International stated that the Russian government was "hellbent on stifling state critics as it coerces domestic media into supporting its policies" and "routinely used force to disperse nationwide anti-war protests." International human rights NGO Civil Rights Defenders stated that there had been a "serious crackdown" on freedom of expression in Russia and that people who had been arrested for protesting against the war were being restricted from having access to lawyers.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 4 March, seven international and Russian human rights groups (Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Human Rights House Foundation, the International Federation for Human Rights, the International Service for Human Rights, the Memorial Human Rights Centre, and Komitet Grazhdanskoe Sodeistvi) released a joint letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council stating that Russia was experiencing a "fully-fledged witch hunt against independent groups, human rights defenders, media outlets and journalists, and political opposition" that was "decimating civil society and forcing many into exile."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Russia's interior ministry justified the arrests due to the "coronavirus restrictions, including on public events" that remained in place. Russian authorities warned Russians of legal repercussions for joining anti-war protests. On 16 March, Putin gave a speech in which he called opponents of the war "scum and traitors," saying that a "natural and necessary self-cleansing of society will only strengthen our country."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 1 March, the Moscow radio station Echo of Moscow, as well as the independent television channel Dozhd, was forced off air for having aired opposition to the war. After completing their final broadcast, Dozhd put on a loop of "Swan Lake", echoing the efforts of Soviet authorities to bury bad news, including the 1991 attempted coup d'état as the USSR was breaking up.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 4 March, the Russian parliament passed a law aimed at stifling reporting and opposition to the war which punishes citizens with up to 15 years in jail for spreading "fake information" about the Russian military and its operations. This law also makes it illegal "to make calls against the use of Russian troops to protect the interests of Russia" or "for discrediting such use" with a penalty possible of up to three years in prison. The same provision applies to calls for sanctions against Russia. This law effectively criminalizes any public opposition to or independent news reporting about the war against Ukraine and could make it a crime to simply call the war a "war" — the Kremlin says it is a "special military operation" — on social media or in a news article or broadcast. Later that day, Putin signed the bill into law; he also signed into law a bill that would allow fines or prison sentences of up to 3 years for those calling for sanctions. On the same day, independent newspaper "Novaya Gazeta" announced that it was pulling all material related to the war from its website, saying that military censorship "has moved to the threat of criminal prosecution of both journalists and citizens who spread information about military hostilities that is different from the press releases of the Ministry of Defence." That same day, Yekaterinburg-based independent news outlet Znak.com announced that it would be suspending its operations due to political repression.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: That same week, Russian telecom regulator Roskomnadzor restricted access to social media websites Facebook and Twitter, as well as a number of international news organisations, including the BBC, German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, American broadcasters Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Ukrainian newspaper Svoboda, and Latvian news website Meduza. A number of other international news organisations suspended operations in Russia due to potential threats to their journalists, including ABC, Bloomberg News, CBC/Radio-Canada, CBS News, and CNN, with Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait stating that "the change to the criminal code, which seems designed to turn any independent reporter into a criminal purely by association, makes it impossible to continue any semblance of normal journalism inside the country." On 6 March, Roskomnadzor restricted access to Mediazona, demanding that the website close itself down. Mediazona defiantly promised to continue, providing tips to evade censorship. On 11 March, Roskomnadzor blocked the websites of Amnesty International as well as that of Russian election monitoring group Golos.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: According to the news website Agentstvo, over 150 journalists left Russia by 7 March since Putin signed the bill into law. Reporters Without Borders has called the law "the final blow [that] completed the destruction of Russia's independent media."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 16 March, Russian socialite and food blogger Veronika Belotserkovskaya became the first individual charged under Russia's new "false information" law. On 22 March, Russian journalist Alexander Nevzorov was charged after he published information that Russian forces had shelled a maternity hospital in Mariupol; he later fled Russia where he received Ukrainian citizenship and was sentenced to arrest in absentia after a court said his posts contained "deliberately false" information. On 25 March, Russian journalist Izabella Yevloyeva was charged under the "fakes law" after sharing a post on social media that described the "Z" symbol as being "synonymous with aggression, death, pain and shameless manipulation".


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Sergei Klokov, a Moscow policeman with Ukrainian roots, who is originally from Bucha, Kyiv Oblast, was arrested after he told colleagues what he had heard from his father and Ukrainian family friends about the Russian invasion.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: According to OVD-Info, over 400 people were detained or fined by April under the laws prohibiting "fake" information about the military. The use of fake messages was claimed to have been used by Russian authorities by at least one Russian anti-war protestor. He claimed that shortly after he was released from detention strange anti-war messages appeared on his phone, and had feared the messages were an attempt to incriminate him before he could leave the country.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: More than 2,000 people were detained or fined by May 2022 under the laws prohibiting "fake" information about the military. By early June, 53 criminal cases had been opened.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: In July 2022, , a member of the Krasnoselsky district council in Moscow, was sentenced to seven years in prison after making anti-war comments at a council meeting in March, including stating that Russia was waging a war of aggression against Ukraine. Lawyer said that this was the first jail term under the new law.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: In August 2022, the former mayor of Yekaterinburg, Yevgeny Roizman, was detailed by police where he said he was being charged with "discrediting" the military. Roizman was previously fined three times under the same law.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: According to OVD-Info, the total number of people detained across Russia after six months is around 16,500, with over 3,800 being charged with offenses that carry fines, and at least 224 facing criminal prosecution.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: "The Moscow Times" reported that some Russian workers who have signed petitions against the war have been told to withdraw their signatures by their employers, and have been fired if they refused. The newspaper also reported that some companies have warned employees against "making posts about political topics on Facebook."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has reported that students in some universities have been threatened with expulsion over acts of anti-war protest. In early March, the student union of Saint Petersburg State University reported that the university has expelled at least 13 students for taking part in anti-war protests.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: A number of anti-war activists and independent journalists in Russia have had their homes targeted with vandalism since the beginning of the invasion, including having manure and messages calling them traitors left outside their doors. The Z symbol, which has achieved prominence in Russian popular culture as a symbol of support for the war, in part through state promotion of the symbol, has also been used to graffiti the homes of several anti-war activists. Film critic Anton Dolin, among those targeted with the symbol, described it as a threat, stating that "The purpose of this is clear: we know where your family live, beware."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: According to "The Moscow Times", Russian authorities and pro-government figures have actively encouraged reporting other citizens, including friends and family, for "anti-Russian" activities including anti-war statements.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Russian NGO OVD-Info reported that it had confirmed at least 30 cases of protestors being beaten by police on the weekend of 5–6 March, as well as several cases of arrested protestors being tortured in detention, while saying that "it is likely that this number is much higher. There are many videos on social networks in which police officers are seen beating anti-war protesters." An audio recording from a protestor arrested that weekend who managed to conceal her phone while detained and interrogated by multiple police documented 11 minutes of physical and verbal abuse, with one officer telling her that "You are the enemies of Russia. You are the enemies of the people."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Human Rights Watch has stated that Russian police have used "excessive force as they arrest people," that police sometimes cover up their ID on their uniforms, that people arrested have been "forced to have their photo and fingerprints taken and surrender their telephones, contrary to Russian law," and that several arrested protestors have been subjected to waterboarding. Mediazona has further reported that women who have been arrested have been subjected to threats of sexual violence, that arrested gender-non-conforming protestors have been ridiculed, and that police sprayed some detainees in the face with antiseptic solutions.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: A number of people affiliated with the Russian government have spoken out against the protests. Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, stated that "now is not the time to be divided. Now is the time to unite, to unite around our president," while acknowledging that "there are heated debates among cultural figures." Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of Russian state-controlled news agencies RT and Rossiya Segodnya, stated that "If you are ashamed of being Russian now, don't worry, you are not Russian." In response to Simonyan's statement, Vitalik Buterin, programmer and one of the co-founders of Ethereum, said: "Go fuck yourself". Andrey Turchak, a lawmaker from Putin's United Russia party, condemn Arkady Dvorkovich's anti-war stance as "nothing but the very national betrayal, the behaviour of the fifth column, which the president [Putin] spoke about...". Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin denounced Russians who oppose the war as "traitors".


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: On 16 March, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a warning to Russian "traitors" who he said the West wanted to use as a "fifth column" to destroy Russia. He said that Russians should undergo "natural and necessary self-cleansing of society" to rid themselves of "bastards" and pro-Western "traitors."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Russian authorities encouraged Russians to report their friends, colleagues and family members to the police for expressing opposition to the war in Ukraine.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Since the beginning of the invasion, more than 300,000 Russians have fled the country, particularly citizens who are opposed to the war, in response to increasing repression and rumours of conscription and martial law. Journalist Boris Grozovski published a Facebook post saying that "We are not tourists, dear citizens of Georgia. We are refugees. Personally, I was wanted by the police in Russia for distributing anti-war petitions... We ran not from bullets, bombs and missiles, but from prison. If I wrote what I write now while in Russia, I would inevitably go to prison for 15–20 years." Others have fled the country due to concerns about deteriorating conditions within the country, specifically in economical and political terms, coupled with anti-war sentiments and being targeted for past opposition movements. Bolshoi Theater ballerina Olga Smirnova left Russia to continue her career in the Netherlands in protest of the war.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: By early April, an estimated 100,000 Russians had fled Russia to Georgia. After three weeks of war, around 14,000 were said to have left for Turkey. Tens of thousands went to Armenia; by 24 May an estimated 108,000 Russian citizens having fled to the country, or Nordic states such as Finland. Thousands are said to have gone to Uzbekistan.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: A state-run poll published on 28 February by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center claimed that 68% of Russians supported the "special military operation", 22% opposed, and 10% found it difficult to answer.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Later on, a series of four online polls by Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation claimed to show sentiment rapidly shifting among Moscow residents. Between 25 February and 3 March, those blaming Russia for the war increased from 14% to 36%, with 79% now in favour of stopping the conflict and engaging in peace negotiation. The proportion of respondents who considered Russia an "aggressor" increased from 29% to 53%, while the share of those considering Russia a "peace-maker" fell by half from 25% to 12%.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: From 26 to 28 February 2022, a survey conducted by the independent research group Russian Field found that 58.8% of respondents supported the "special military operation" in Ukraine. According to the poll, in the group of 18-to-24-year-olds, only 29% supported the "special military operation".


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: A poll by the independent Levada Center published on 30 March saw Putin's approval rating jump from 71% in February to 83% in March.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Experts have warned that the figures may not accurately reflect the public mood, as the public tends to rally around leaders during war and some may be hiding their true opinions, especially with enhanced censorship and a new law prohibiting the dissemination of "fake information" about the military. A study by researchers affiliated with the London School of Economics found that stated support for the war among Russians dropped from 68% to 53% when asked indirectly about the invasion in polls. Many respondents do not want to answer pollsters' questions for fear of negative consequences. In March 2022, when a Russian opposition politician Maxim Katz and a group of Russian researchers commissioned a poll on Russians' attitudes toward the war in Ukraine, 29,400 of the 31,000 people they called refused to answer after hearing the subject matter in question.


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Alvina Hoffmann of King's College London said that the "seemingly broad anti-war coalition is remarkable, given that the "Russian political apparatus has been systematically dismantling opposition movements, creating a climate where any form of protest is met with oppression." Russian journalist Alexander Bidin, writing for openDemocracy, stated that "Russian society lacks institutions that are capable of taking up the organisation of protests, especially at short notice" and that "for the majority, going out into the streets is a moral duty and a symbolic act, rather than a functional instrument of resistance to the authorities." Sasha de Vogel of New York University has argued that anti-war protests "are more visible to audiences in the West than to the Russian public at large" and that the protests "have no coordinating body. Many have been planned through personal networks and social media posts. In some cases, opponents of the war have simply travelled to their nearest city centre in the hope of finding like-minded citizens. Many protests are single-person pickets."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Maria Popova of McGill University stated that "you're not only taking a risk by showing up to a protest, you're taking a risk of being put on a list and being systematically harassed by authorities for having taking part in a protest," further saying that the levels of repression in Russia were "way worse than they have been at any point since Stalinist time." One protestor interviewed by NPR stated that the anti-war protests "seem more dangerous" than previous protest movements in Russia under Putin and that some protestors "really did not realize that it is possible to just have a poster that says 'No to war' and end up at the police station. They really did not think that this was possible in our country."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Grigory Durnovo, analyst for Russian NGO OVD-Info, told France 24 that "we have never seen such a large number of detainees per day," with protestors risking fines "from 2,000 to 300,000 rubles (from €17 to more than €2,500) and risk up to 30 days in detention." Durnovo further stated that Russian state media "sometimes mentions anti-war protests but we can't use them as a source because they don't tell the whole story." On 4 March, OVD-Info coordinator Leonid Drabkin told Al Jazeera that "in over 100 cities, we know that there were detentions" since the start of the invasion and that "this topic really touches everyone. Because it's not really about your political views, but many Russians have relatives and friends in Ukraine."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Several commentators have noted the significant presence of youth in the anti-war protests in Russia. Cynthia Hooper of the College of the Holy Cross said that protests against the war represented a "generational struggle" in Russia, pitting "those who believe in the stories of state-run television against their own children." CNN International's diplomatic editor Nic Robertson stated that "a generation here has grown up willfully ignorant of state disinformation, weaned instead on social media, so are impervious to the lies that cowed their parents," but that they were "still contained by the massive state security infrastructure that is the real muscle behind state media's messaging."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Commentators have also noted the significant role of women in the protests. Meduza journalist Alexey Kovalyov has stated that "it's mostly women who are facing real violence and serious prison time." Maria Silina of the Université du Québec à Montréal has stated that "the overwhelming majority of [anti-war protestors] were women, queer or trans — many of whom were rarely visible as political activists in Russia due to homophobic laws against them."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Ben Noble of University College London stated that:"Russian state media continues to portray a very different reality to the coverage in western media. Rather than a full-scale assault, the narrative is of a "special operation" to protect ethnic Russians in the so-called "republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk from "genocide" being carried out by Ukraine's "neo-Nazi" government. Words like "invasion" and "war" are banned in Russian media. Independent outlets have been blocked or shut down. And Russians face the prospect of harsh punishment for challenging the state's line on the conflict."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: One reason many Russians have supported the "special military operation" in Ukraine has to do with the propaganda and disinformation being sown by the Kremlin. Some observers noted what they described as a "generational struggle" among Russians over perception of the war, with younger Russians more likely opposed to the war and older Russians more likely to accept the narrative presented by state-controlled media in Russia. According to researcher Mikhail Sokolov, "If you are younger than 30, live in a big city, have a higher education and do not watch television, the probability that you will not support the actions of the Russian army exceeds 80%."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: The effect of international sanctions and condemnation of the war at domestic anti-war protests has been debated. Brian Grodsky of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County warned that the weight of sanctions might hurt the Russian opposition more than help it, saying that "the very sanctions that encourage Russians to attack the regime also narrow their available opportunities to do so." Carnegie Moscow Center scholar Andrey Movchan wrote that sanctions aimed at ordinary Russians could be "exactly what the Kremlin wants – that tens of millions of Russians who oppose the regime will be unable to leave the country and even temporarily find themselves in a world free of Russian propaganda," stating that sanctions should instead "uncompromisingly block the Kremlin's access to its financial and technological resources."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Kremlinologist Lilia Shevtsova stated that "the 'Crimea effect' is vanishing. The war in Ukraine creates 'our' casualties – this will have an impact. Moreover, in 2008 and 2014, the wars were relatively short and they ended with 'our' victory. At the moment, a lot of Russians accept Putin's 'peace operation.' But they may change their attitude if the operation [is] long and bloody."


title: 2022 anti-war protests in Russia

text: Erica Chenoweth of the Harvard Kennedy School has stated that "protests are necessary but insufficient predictors of when elites decide to shift their loyalty" and that it was "important not to underestimate that Putin does have a real base that's incredibly loyal to him."


title: Hidden Markov model

text: A hidden Markov model (HMM) is a statistical Markov model in which the system being modeled is assumed to be a Markov process — call it formula_1 — with unobservable (""hidden"") states. As part of the definition, HMM requires that there be an observable process formula_2 whose outcomes are "influenced" by the outcomes of formula_3 in a known way. Since formula_1 cannot be observed directly, the goal is to learn about formula_3 by observing formula_6 HMM has an additional requirement that the outcome of formula_2 at time formula_8 must be "influenced" exclusively by the outcome of formula_1 at formula_8 and that the outcomes of formula_1 and formula_2 at formula_13 must not affect the outcome of formula_2 at formula_15


title: Hidden Markov model

text: Hidden Markov models are known for their applications to thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, physics, chemistry, economics, finance, signal processing, information theory, pattern recognition - such as speech , handwriting, gesture recognition, part-of-speech tagging, musical score following, partial discharges and bioinformatics.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: Let formula_16 and formula_17 be discrete-time stochastic processes and formula_18. The pair formula_19 is a "hidden Markov model" if


title: Hidden Markov model

text: Let formula_25 and formula_26 be continuous-time stochastic processes. The pair formula_27 is a "hidden Markov model" if


title: Hidden Markov model

text: The states of the process formula_16 (resp. formula_34 are called "hidden states", and formula_35 (resp. formula_36 is called "emission probability" or "output probability".


title: Hidden Markov model

text: In its discrete form, a hidden Markov process can be visualized as a generalization of the urn problem with replacement (where each item from the urn is returned to the original urn before the next step). Consider this example: in a room that is not visible to an observer there is a genie. The room contains urns X1, X2, X3, ... each of which contains a known mix of balls, each ball labeled y1, y2, y3, ... . The genie chooses an urn in that room and randomly draws a ball from that urn. It then puts the ball onto a conveyor belt, where the observer can observe the sequence of the balls but not the sequence of urns from which they were drawn. The genie has some procedure to choose urns; the choice of the urn for the "n"-th ball depends only upon a random number and the choice of the urn for the ("n" − 1)-th ball. The choice of urn does not directly depend on the urns chosen before this single previous urn; therefore, this is called a Markov process. It can be described by the upper part of Figure 1.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: The Markov process itself cannot be observed, only the sequence of labeled balls, thus this arrangement is called a "hidden Markov process". This is illustrated by the lower part of the diagram shown in Figure 1, where one can see that balls y1, y2, y3, y4 can be drawn at each state. Even if the observer knows the composition of the urns and has just observed a sequence of three balls, "e.g." y1, y2 and y3 on the conveyor belt, the observer still cannot be "sure" which urn ("i.e.", at which state) the genie has drawn the third ball from. However, the observer can work out other information, such as the likelihood that the third ball came from each of the urns.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: Consider two friends, Alice and Bob, who live far apart from each other and who talk together daily over the telephone about what they did that day. Bob is only interested in three activities: walking in the park, shopping, and cleaning his apartment. The choice of what to do is determined exclusively by the weather on a given day. Alice has no definite information about the weather, but she knows general trends. Based on what Bob tells her he did each day, Alice tries to guess what the weather must have been like.


title: Hidden Markov model

text: Alice believes that the weather operates as a discrete Markov chain. There are two states, "Rainy" and "Sunny", but she cannot observe them directly, that is, they are "hidden" from her. On each day, there is a certain chance that Bob will perform one of the following activities, depending on the weather: "walk", "shop", or "clean". Since Bob tells Alice about his activities, those are the "observations". The entire system is that of a hidden Markov model (HMM).


title: Hidden Markov model

text: Alice knows the general weather trends in the area, and what Bob likes to do on average. In other words, the parameters of the HMM are known. They can be represented as follows in Python:


title: Hidden Markov model

text: In this piece of code, codice_1 represents Alice's belief about which state the HMM is in when Bob first calls her (all she knows is that it tends to be rainy on average). The particular probability distribution used here is not the equilibrium one, which is (given the transition probabilities) approximately codice_2. The codice_3 represents the change of the weather in the underlying Markov chain. In this example, there is only a 30% chance that tomorrow will be sunny if today is rainy. The codice_4 represents how likely Bob is to perform a certain activity on each day. If it is rainy, there is a 50% chance that he is cleaning his apartment; if it is sunny, there is a 60% chance that he is outside for a walk.