Seeing the tricolour as tainted, they took the ‘blood’ out to leave blue and white, then found others had done so too

• Russia-Ukraine war: latest developments

When Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine, anti-war Russians such as Kai Katonina, a 31-year-old designer who lives in Berlin, joined protests around the world. Katonina held up a sign that read “No to war”, but few in the crowd knew that they (Katonina’s preferred pronoun) were Russian.

They said: “Onlookers thought we were Ukrainians because our people look the same. It was crucial for us to stand apart and show that Russians also oppose the war. We needed to identify ourselves.”