Several thousand protesters laid down on the lawn in front of Germany's parliament on Wednesday to commemorate the people killed in the war in Ukraine and to demand Berlin stop purchasing Russian oil and gas.
The Alliance of Ukrainian Organizations had registered 5,000 participants in the protest outside the Reichstag building in Berlin's government quarter.
Many were dressed in the blue and yellow colours of Ukraine and had red tears painted under their eyes. Signs held up read "No money for war" and condemned the stance of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
At the start of the demonstration they chanted slogans demanding an embargo on Russian oil and gas. Accounts of civilians caught up in the war were then read out before the participants sprawled out on the ground and formed a "human carpet."
Many of the demonstrators had their eyes shut and their hands behind their backs, as if they had been tied up.
The scene evoked pictures that have emerged from the small town of Bucha, outside of Kiev, where hundreds of civilians were found dead after the withdrawal of Russian forces.
Bullet wounds to the head
Some of the victims had been tied up and had bullet wounds to the head, suggesting they had been executed. Moscow denies its troops had any involvement in the atrocities.
In Lithuania, several dozen people protested outside the German embassy in Vilnius to express their anger at Berlin's reticence to impose a ban on Russian energy sources.
They also laid motionless on the street in front of the embassy to symbolize civilians killed in Ukraine.
"Germany is financing Russia's actions and genocide in Ukraine because of cheaper heating," one of the activists told Lithuanian radio.
