Shkoi Kurdistan-
Russian police detained dozens of protesters on Saturday as thousands of supporters of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny took to the streets following his call to protest against President Vladimir Putin’s rule, according to AfP.
Putin’s most charismatic critic urged mass rallies after surviving a near-fatal poisoning with a Novichok nerve agent and returning to Moscow last weekend following months of treatment in Germany. He was arrested at Sheremetyevo Airport and jailed.
Saturday’s rallies are expected to be a major test of the opposition’s ability to mobilise despite the increasing Kremlin pressure on critics and the coronavirus pandemic.
Ahead of the demonstrations, Navalny’s team released an investigation into an opulent Black Sea property allegedly owned by Putin. Since its release it has been viewed more than 65 million times.
In the Pacific port of Vladivostok, demonstrators gathered in the city centre, chanting “Putin is a thief” and “Freedom to Navalny!” Police in full riot gear were seen running after protesters and beating them with batons, showed AFP footage.
Protests also took place in other cities in the Far East and Siberia including Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk and Chita where several thousand took to the streets, Navalny supporters said.
In Yakutsk south of the Arctic Circle, protesters bundled up against the cold rallied in the temperature of minus 50 degrees Celsius.
OVD Info, which monitors detentions at opposition rallies, said police roughly broke up rallies and nearly 200 people were detained in around 20 cities.
In Moscow, which usually mobilises the largest rallies, protesters plan to meet in the central Pushkin Square at 2:00 pm (1100 GMT) and march towards the Kremlin.
Hours ahead of the Moscow protest, workers began re-laying paving slabs at the site of the rally, Navalny team said.
Moscow police vowed a tough crackdown, with police saying unsanctioned public events would be “immediately suppressed”.
