At least 700 Russians, calling for an end to the Putin regime, marched on Saturday to the Russian Embassy, in Notting Hill, London, where they held a rally. Chanting ““Victory for Ukraine, freedom for Russia”, “Stop Putin, stop the war” and “Putin is a War Criminal”, the protesters had to walk on the pavement as the police had refused to close the road.

The tightly-packed meeting directly opposite the embassy not 40 metres away was addressed by Marina Litvinenko, the widow of the murdered Russian defector, and by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former oligarch who spent 10 years in a Russian jail, and by several other high-profile speakers.

Khodorkovsky said Russians had completely different interests from Putin; “It`s Putin`s war, not the war of the Russian people”. He predicted the end of the war would mean the end of the Putin regime.

Marina Litvinenko, whose husband Alexander, was poisoned with radioactive polonium in London 15 years ago, almost certainly on the orders of Putin, spoke in Russian and called for a Ukrainian victory in the war. Only that would bring about the end of the Putin regime, with Russia being able to return to a normal relationship with the international community. She said she was surprised by the large turnout at such a protest.

Ksenia Maximova, one of the organisers of the campaign group, the Russian Democratic Society, told The Guardian, that the protest demonstrated the existence of a strong expatriate opposition to Putin and the war. She said that on a previous protest, the ambassador himself had emerged to film the people projecting the words “Russia is a Terrorist State” onto the front of the embassy.

Pictures by Peter Arkell include: The protest passing in front the of the white Russian Embassy building, and Marina Litvinenko addressing the meeting.