HANNOVER/FRANKFURT, April 10 – Pro-Russians demonstrated on Sunday in the German cities of Frankfurt and Hanover, where they were vastly outnumbered by Ukrainian supporters, local police said.
Around 600 pro-Russian protesters in a motorcade of 400 Russian-flagged cars drove through Hanover in northern Germany, while around 3,500 Ukraine supporters gathered in the city centre, police said.
Fences have been erected to separate the pro-Russian protesters from the rival demonstration, they said, adding that the atmosphere was heated at times but both protests were largely peaceful.
According to government statistics from the end of 2020, around 235,000 Russian citizens live in Germany. Around 135,000 Ukrainians were living in Germany before the Russian invasion, according to statistics, but around 300,000 more have arrived since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24.
In Frankfurt, around 800 pro-Russian protesters gathered for a march through the city center after local authorities refused to allow a motorcade, with some chanting “Russia” and holding up a banner that read “Truth and diversity, not propaganda.”
Around 2,500 pro-Ukrainian protesters gathered at two other locations in Frankfurt, holding “Stop War” banners and with Ukrainian flags painted on their faces.
Ahead of Sunday’s rallies, authorities had said protesters had the right to assemble but Russian war propaganda or condoning Russian aggression would not be tolerated, local media reported.
Police reprimanded some protesters in Frankfurt for shouting “Donbass belongs to Russia” and referring to the eastern part of Ukraine that borders Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sent his troops to Ukraine in a bid to demilitarize and “denazify,” as he calls it, Ukraine. Ukraine and the West say Putin has launched an unprovoked war of aggression.
Reporting by Fabian Bimmer and Erol Dogrudogan in Hanover, Kai Pfaffenbach, Andreas Burger and Frank Simon in Frankfurt, Victoria Waldersee in Berlin. Edited by Jane Merriman and Barbara Lewis