Russia: Demonstrations against Putin across the country, the police arrest hundreds
Russian police today, Saturday, arrested hundreds of imprisoned opposition supporters Alexei Navalny, during demonstrations against Putin across Russia, after the authorities vowed to suppress the protests that were called out in various parts of the country to denounce Navalny’s arrest and corruption.
The Russian police confirmed that they had arrested 350 people during the protests that took place in several cities today.
The first protests took place in Russia’s far east, as thousands of people took to the streets in Vladivostok and Khabarovsk while large police forces were deployed in front of the demonstrators, according to Navalny’s supporters.
In the capital, Moscow, where the opposition mobilization is usually greater, the protesters are supposed to gather in Pushkin Square, and the Moscow police promised to “suppress without delay” any unauthorized gathering that they considered “a threat to public order.” For his part, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin condemned the demonstrations
Unacceptable during the height of the Covid-19 epidemic.
The call for protests across Russia comes less than a week after Navalny was arrested and imprisoned for 30 days on charges of violating the terms of a previous court ruling against him.
The major opposition gatherings in Moscow in the summer of 2019 witnessed the arrest of thousands of peaceful demonstrators, and many of them were sentenced to harsh prison terms on charges of carrying out violence against the police, despite the protest of non-governmental organizations.
As in 2019, prior to the mobilization, Russian police arrested leading allies of Alexei Navalny and two of them were sentenced on Friday to short prison terms, and in other regions, a number of his movement coordinators were arrested after calling them to the Saturday demonstration.
Navalny, 44, is detained until at least February 15 and is being targeted for a number of legal measures.
He was arrested on his return last Sunday from Germany, where he spent five months in convalescence.
