More than 1,300 protesters have been arrested across Russia after Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilisation of citizens to fight in Ukraine. Read more here:
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In Saint Petersburg, AFP reporters saw police surround a small group of protesters and detain them one by one, loading them onto a bus.Russian police officers, one of them with letter "Z" on his uniform, a symbol of support of the military invasion in Ukraine, detain a man at an anti-war protest in Moscow."Everyone is scared. I am for peace and I don't want to have to shoot.
Mr Putin, in a televised address, warned Moscow would use all available military means in Ukraine, but the "partial mobilisation" decree gave no clue as to who would be called up. As a permanent member of its most powerful entity, the Security Council, Russia was able to veto a demand to stop its attack on Ukraine days after it began.
Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham has called on the government to provide expeditious assistance to Ukraine, and rejected the Russian president's comments. President Putin's mobilisation order came as 10 prisoners of war - including two from the United States and five from the UK - were freed as part of an exchange between Russia and Ukraine.
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