A few flowers, a few stuffed animals and a photo have led to several arrests and the stationing of a police bus in front of a monument to the Ukrainian poet Lesya Ukrainka in Moscow.

From Monday, flowers - mainly carnations - and cuddly toys were laid on the Ukrainian Boulevard in the Russian capital at the bronze figure of the Ukrainian, who lived from 1871 to 1913.

Frederick Smith

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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A framed black-and-white photo showed the apartment block in Dnipro, Ukraine, that was destroyed in a Russian missile attack on Saturday, killing at least 45 people.

Some passers-by stopped and spoke quietly to one another.

Actually, this spontaneous gesture of mourning was quite compatible with the official Moscow version: Russia blames Ukraine for the dead - as always when Russian attacks, which cannot be propaganda reinterpreted as fighting, lead to many civilian casualties.

Activists loyal to the Kremlin called the police

After the downing of flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in the summer of 2014, flowers and cards with inscriptions such as “Not all Russians are murderers and terrorists” were laid in front of the Dutch embassy in Moscow;

they were of course soon removed at that time.

Such statements were missing at the Lessya Ukrainka monument.

Nevertheless, even this gesture of mourning was too much for the Russian regime on Tuesday evening: police officers arrested four people at the memorial.

According to the civil rights activists from "OWD-Info", two of them were laying flowers, two others were simply nearby.

The dog of an arrested person stayed behind, neighbors later collected it.

According to an eyewitness, activists loyal to the Kremlin had called the police.

One of those arrested, who was held at the police station all night, is now accused of "hooliganism", the allegations against the other three initially remained unclear.

At the foot of the monument there were again a few carnations on Wednesday morning.

Everything else had been removed, including the photo.

A police bus with the engine running was parked in front of the monument, in which several emergency services were on guard.