Aiming to revive the strife-torn internal movement, the protesters headed to Moscow's embassy in the German capital - Berlin is home to thousands of Ukrainian refugees and Russian critics of President Vladimir Putin.
Organizers believe the march will serve as a litmus test for the credibility of the opposition in exile, and up to 2,000 supporters rallied to the cause despite darkening skies, chanting "No to war" and "Russia without Putin."
In recent years, the Kremlin has eliminated all political competition in the country and launched a massive crackdown on dissent, with hundreds - and perhaps thousands - of Russians jailed for their political views.
Putin has been in power for almost 25 years and all his significant political opponents are now dead, in prison or in exile.
"It is important to show that Russians and Russian speakers are not all for Putin, as the whole world might think, but that they also defend liberal-democratic values, that they are against war and killing," said protester and 21-year-old student Polina Zelenskaya.
The Russian opposition lost its main leader in February when Putin's rival Alexei Navalny died under mysterious circumstances in an Arctic prison.
His widow Yulia Navalny, who took over the leadership of the movement, was at the head of the march as one of its main organisers.
Unable to act at home, the opposition was forced to resume its activities abroad, where hundreds of thousands of Russians fled after the February 2022 invasion.
Navalny joined forces for the rally with two other oppositionists: former Moscow city councilor and longtime anti-Putin activist Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza, who survived two poisoning attempts.
Both Yashin and Kara-Murza were released from prison, where they were serving sentences for condemning the invasion of Ukraine, after prisoner swaps with the West this summer.
The opposition says it has three main demands: the "immediate withdrawal" of troops from Ukraine, Putin's trial as a "war criminal" and the release of all political prisoners in Russia. | BGNES
