Opposition leader held in mass arrests
opposition demonstration.
Yesterday’s protests were the first major event organised by Navalny since the presidential election on March 18, which the opposition leader encouraged voters to boycott.
‘‘Craven old man Putin thinks he is a tsar,’’ Navalny wrote on Twitter ahead of the demonstrations.
Authorities in some Russian cities issued permits for demonstrations, though many did not and mass arrests ensued.
In St Petersburg, several thousand people marched along Nevsky Prospect, the city’s main thoroughfare, chanting ‘‘Putin is a thief’’ and ‘‘Down with the tsar’’.
When police tried to stop the unsanctioned march, protesters pelted them with eggs and water bottles, an AFP reporter said.
In the city of Chelyabinsk, close to the Ural Mountains, more than 160 people were detained by mid-afternoon, while in Yakutsk, some 75 were reported arrested.
Observers had expressed fears that the protests could lead to mass arrests after similar rallies in 2012 led to a huge crackdown on the protest movement.
Putin, who is in the final days of his third term before his swearing-in ceremony on Monday, won with almost 77 per cent of the vote.
Even before his re-election, Putin had secured his place in Russian history as the nation’s longest-serving leader since Joseph Stalin. He has been in power since 2000. – Telegraph Group