KREMLIN DEFENDS POLICE BEATINGS OF PROTESTERS

The Kremlin has defended a police operation in which hundreds of protesters were beaten up and detained at a march against the jailing of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Street demonstrations took place across Moscow on Tuesday after a judge sentenced Navalny to nearly three years in jail for violating the terms of his parole while in a coma after being poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent.

More than 1,400 arrests were made on Tuesday, most of them in the capital, according to the activist group OVD-Info, taking the total including last weekend's unrest to more than 6,000.

Detention facilities in Moscow were apparently so full Wednesday that some human rights activists had to spend the night in a police van, they claimed. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, defended the police measures, warning of the risk of unauthorized gatherings.

“The police reacted in this way because of the threats that could have arisen from staging an unsanctioned rally,” he said.