Police officers detain anti-corruption campaigner and opposition figure Alexei Navalny during a rally in Moscow, Russia, March 26, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian police detained opposition leader Alexei Navalny in central Moscow on Sunday at a rally which Navalny had called to protest against corruption.

A Reuters reporter saw police detain Navalny on Moscow’s Tverskaya Street and put him in a police truck. Hundreds of opposition protesters crowded around the police van and tried to prevent it from taking Navalny away. </s> Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption campaigner, has been arrested in Moscow as unsanctioned protests against the government were held across the country.

Navalny and his Foundation for Fighting Corruption had called for the protests, which attracted crowds of hundreds or thousands in most sizeable Russian cities, from the Far East port of Vladivostok to the European heartland.

The protests appeared to be one of the largest coordinated outpourings of dissatisfaction in Russia since the massive 2011-12 demonstrations that followed a fraud-tainted parliamentary election.

The protests on Sunday focused on reports by Navalny’s group claiming that the prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, had amassed a collection of mansions, yachts and vineyards. The alleged luxuries include a house for raising ducks, so many placards in Sunday’s protests showed mocking images of yellow duck toys.

In Vladivostok, police forcefully detained some demonstrators near the city’s railway terminal, in one case falling down a small grassy slope as they wrestled with a detainee.

News reports and social media reported demonstrations in large cities throughout the country including Novosibirsk, Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk. At least 25 people were reported arrested in Vladivostok and 12 in Khabarovsk.

Some demonstrators showed up with their faces painted green, a reference to a recent attack on Navalny when an assailant threw a green antiseptic liquid on to his face. </s> Russian opposition leader and government critic Alexei Navalny was detained just before a protest in Moscow, his wife said Monday.

Yulia Navalny wrote on Twitter that “Alexei has been arrested in the entrance to our block of flats,” but added that “the plans will not change.”

Alexei Navalny had called on supporters to attend anti-Putin and anti-corruption protests across the country.

Ahead of the demonstrations, Reuters reported increased police presence. Monday is Russia Day, a national holiday.

There were several arrests at protests in the east of the country, the BBC reported. At least 10 people were detained at a rally in the city of Vladivostok, while four people were also arrested in Blagoveshchensk and at least one other in Kazan.

Navalny intends to challenge Putin in this year’s election. </s> MOSCOW — Russian police detained opposition leader Alexei Navalny in central Moscow on Sunday at a rally Navalny had called to protest corruption.

A Reuters reporter saw police detain Navalny on Moscow's Tverskaya Street and put him in a police truck. Hundreds of opposition protesters crowded around the police van and tried to prevent it from taking him away.

A tweet from Navalny's account after the incident said: "Guys, I'm all right. Don't try to break me out. Go on walking down the Tverskaya. Our topic today is fight against corruption."

Russian protesters denouncing government corruption had gathered across Russia, and some scuffled with police.

The protests Sunday appear to be one of the largest coordinated outpourings of dissatisfaction since the 2011-12 demonstrations following a fraud-tainted parliamentary election.

The demonstrations, driven by Navalny, focus on his recent claims that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has amassed a collection of mansions, yachts and vineyards.

Moscow police told the TASS news agency that the number of people detained was "more than 500." Police said those detained will face "administrative prosecution," or fines and arrests.

But the final tally of those detained in Moscow was 700, according to the human rights monitoring group OVD-Info.

Navalny's press secretary, Kira Yarmush, said on Twitter that people at his office had been detained and that Leonid Volkov, the head of the office and co-founder of Navalny's unregistered Party of Progress, was facing extremism charges.

Some demonstrators have showed up with their faces painted green, a reference to a recent attack on Navalny when an assailant threw a green antiseptic liquid onto his face.

It isn't the first time Navalny has been in trouble with the police. Just last month, he was convicted of embezzling 16 million rubles ($270,000) in 2009.

At the time, Navalny said the conviction was an effort to stop him from challenging President Vladimir Putin's party in coming elections. People with criminal convictions are ineligible to run for office in Russia. </s> Large anti-corruption protests swept across Russia Sunday. Many of them were organized by opposition leader Alexei Navalny who has now been arrested. These protests were the biggest since 2012 when tens of thousands came out against the Kremlin over allegations of widespread vote fraud. NPR's Kelly McEvers talks to independent Russian journalist Vladimir Pozner who is in Moscow. </s> Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption "Police are pulling people out at random" - BBC reporter at the scene

Hundreds of people have been detained at anti-corruption rallies in Moscow and St Petersburg.

Riot police in central Moscow were picking protesters out of the crowd at random, a BBC correspondent at the demonstration has said.

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was detained at his home ahead of the protests, according to his wife.

Thousands of supporters have heeded his call to take to the streets of Moscow and other Russian cities.

OVD-Info, an independent NGO, told Russian media that 600 people had been detained at the Moscow protest.

Police in Moscow say about 5,000 took part in the demonstration there, Interfax news agency reports.

Russia's interior ministry says that about 3,500 people attended the protest in St Petersburg, and 500 were detained.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Young people were detained at the protest in St Petersburg

"Alexei [Navalny] has been arrested in the entrance to our block of flats," Yuliya Navalnaya wrote on Twitter, ahead of the demonstration.

Mr Navalny, who intends to stand for the Russian presidency next year, had been due to attend the unauthorised rally in central Moscow.

'Many young plucked from the crowd' - by BBC's Sarah Rainsford, central Moscow

Image copyright EPA

This was a peculiar protest.

At first it was hard to tell who was taking part. Tverskaya Street was full of families marking Russia Day with entertainers in historical costumes.

Then thousands of protesters turned up. Huge numbers of riot police were right behind them.

First they announced that the rally was illegal then the arrests began. We saw dozens of people plucked from the crowd - many of them young - and dragged roughly towards police buses.

By calling people to an unauthorised rally, Alexei Navalny knew he was risking a confrontation. The police duly obliged.

But people I spoke to said they knew the risk and still wanted their voices to be heard. Among other things, those voices chanted loudly: "Putin, thief!" and "Russia will be free".

In a live broadcast by the Russian liberal TV channel, Dozhd, protesters in St Petersburg could be heard shouting "shame" as they were detained by police. Among those arrested was Maxim Reznik, the city's legislative assembly deputy.

Prominent activist Daniil Ken said he was arrested as he left his home in St Petersburg. He urged people to join the rally at the city's Champ de Mars square. "Go for me, please!" he tweeted. He has since been released.

Police had earlier detained several people at demonstrations in the cities of Vladivostok, Blagoveshchensk and Kazan.

What are the protests about?

Mr Navalny called on Russians to take to the streets on Monday - Russia Day - to express their anger at alleged corruption at the highest levels.

The anti-corruption campaigner uses YouTube, tweets and blogs to reach new audiences.

A video posted in March accuses Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev of accumulating a vast private fortune. Mr Medvedev denies the claims. The video, which includes the accusation that the PM has a duck house on one of his properties, has been viewed nearly 23 million times.

In a call for people to join him on Monday, Mr Navalny wrote: "I want changes. I want to live in a modern democratic state and I want our taxes to be converted into roads, schools and hospitals, not into yachts, palaces and vineyards."

Mr Navalny was earlier granted permission to hold a rally at Sakharova Avenue but changed the location - without permission - on the eve of the demonstration to Tverskaya Street, near the Kremlin.

The protest was called over government plans to demolish Soviet-era apartment blocks in the city.

Image copyright EPA Image caption This woman draped herself in the colours of the Russian flag

Permission was granted for demonstrations in 169 locations across the country, some of which were broadcast live on the Navalny Live YouTube channel.

The protests coincided with a series of official events - including festivals, concerts and military enactments - taking place across the country to mark Russia Day, the national holiday dedicated to the 1990 declaration of sovereignty.

Similar rallies led by Mr Navalny in March led to hundreds of arrests.

Those protests were the largest since 2012, drawing thousands of people - including many teenagers - to rallies nationwide, angered by a report published by Mr Navalny that accused Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev of corruption.

Are you at or planning to attend the protest? Share your views and experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.

Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways: </s> Tens of thousands of protesters held anti-corruption rallies across Russia today in a new show of defiance by an opposition that the Kremlin had once dismissed as ineffectual and marginalised.

Nearly 1000 thousand were arrested — including opposition leader and protest organiser Alexei Navalny, who was seized outside his Moscow residence while heading to the rally in the city centre and sentenced to 30 days in jail several hours later.

The Moscow protest was the most prominent in a string of more than 100 rallies in cities and towns stretching through all 11 of Russia's time zones — from the Pacific to the European enclave of Kaliningrad — with many denouncing President Vladimir Putin.

Thousands of angry demonstrators thronged to Tverskaya Street, a main avenue in the capital, chanting "Down with the czar" and singing the Russian national anthem.

The protests coincided with Russia Day, a national holiday that this year brought out historical re-enactors, some of them dressed in medieval costumes.

More than 800 people were arrested in Moscow, while in St Petersburg, about 500 were forced into police buses at an unsanctioned rally that drew up to 10,000 people.

Although it was not immediately clear if today's protests were larger than those in March, they underlined the deep dismay with the government.

Putin is expected to seek another term in 2018, and Navalny has already announced his intentions to run. </s> MOSCOW Baton-wielding riot police broke up anti-corruption protests and detained hundreds of demonstrators in Moscow and other Russian cities on Monday soon after arresting opposition leader Alexei Navalny.The protests, called by Navalny, a strong critic of Russian President Vladmir Putin, drew thousands of people and were some of the biggest in Russia since 2012. "Russia without Putin" and "Russia will be free" chanted the demonstrators, including many young people, who crowded into central Moscow on a public holiday. Navalny, who is mounting a long-shot bid to unseat Putin in an election next year, had called for mass protests in Moscow and other cities against official corruption.The Kremlin has dismissed Navalny's graft allegations, accusing him of irresponsibly trying to whip up unrest.The scale of Monday's protests in Moscow and smaller ones in St. Petersburg and scores of other cities suggests Navalny has maintained his campaign's momentum despite more than 1,000 people being arrested after the last such protest in March.That is likely to embolden him to call for more protests and keep Putin, who is expected to run for and win re-election next year, under rare domestic pressure."Neither mass detentions nor criminal cases after March 26 (the last protest) worked," wrote Lyubov Sobol, a Navalny ally, on social media. "People are not afraid." The OVD-Info monitoring group, a non-profit organisation said preliminary figures showed 730 people had been detained in Moscow. The Interior Ministry said 500 people were detained in St Petersburg.Navalny's wife, Yulia, said her husband had been detained as he tried to leave their home. Reuters witnesses saw a police car leaving his apartment compound at high speed, followed a few minutes later by a minibus carrying about 10 policemen.

Electricity in his office was cut at around the same time as he was detained, briefly bringing down a live feed of the protests, Navalny's spokeswoman said.Navalny was accused of violating the law on organising public meetings and of disobeying a police officer, police said.Authorities in Moscow said Monday's protest was illegal and drafted in riot police who fired pepper spray and used batons to break it up, detaining people and bundling them onto buses.Roman, a 19-year-old student, said Navalny's campaign against official corruption had struck a chord."I'm sick of the Putin system," he said. "It's been unchanged for the last 17 years. There is so much evidence that our officials are stealing with impunity."

Dima, an 18-year-old florist, said he wanted Prime Minister Medvedev to return what he said were the politician's ill-gotten gains. Medvedev, a close Putin ally, flatly denies wrongdoing."I'm not afraid if I get detained," Dima said.The Interior Ministry said the turnout at the Moscow protest was about 4,500 -- significantly fewer than the numbers estimated by Reuters reporters, who put the turnout in the low tens of thousands. CHANGES

 State media ignored the demonstrations, broadcasting Soviet-style coverage of Putin handing out state awards instead.

Navalny brought thousands onto the streets across Russia in March, the largest such protests since a wave of anti-Kremlin demonstrations in 2012. Navalny was fined and jailed for 15 days for his role in those protests.Moscow authorities had initially authorised a venue for Monday's protest away from the city centre. But Navalny switched it to Tverskaya Street, Moscow's main avenue near the Kremlin. The General Prosecutor's Office had warned that a protest there would be illegal.The area of Tsverskaya Street near where Navalny's supporters congregated was hosting an officially-organised festival, with actors re-enacting periods of Russian history.Video footage showed a protester clambering onto a mock-up of a wartime sandbag fortification holding a poster calling Putin a liar, before being pulled to the ground by a cast member dressed as a World War Two Soviet soldier. For now, polls suggest Navalny has scant chance of unseating Putin, who enjoys high ratings. It is unclear too if the Kremlin will even let Navalny run for the presidency. But the 41-year-old lawyer turned political street campaigner hopes anger over corruption may boost his support. A video he made accusing Medvedev of living far beyond his means has garnered over 22 million online views to date.Navalny, who had a green liquid thrown in his face in April, robbing him of some of his sight, said hundreds of people had also attended demonstrations in Russia's Far East on Monday morning. "I want changes," wrote Navalny in a blog post last week. "I want to live in a modern democratic state and I want our taxes to be converted into roads, schools and hospitals, not into yachts, palaces and vineyards." (Additional reporting by Christian Lowe, Jack Stubbs, Maria Tsvetkova, Dmitry Solovyov, Gleb Stolyarov, and Anton Zverev in Moscow and Natasha Shurmina in Ekaterinburg; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Richard Balmforth and Angus MacSwan)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. </s> MOSCOW: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been freed after a brief spell in police detention in Moscow as thousands rallied against a March election expected to extend Vladimir Putin's Kremlin term.

"I'm free," Navalny said on Twitter late Sunday, adding: "Today has been an important day... Thanks to all those who were not afraid to fight for their rights."

Heeding a call by Putin's bete noire, thousands braved freezing temperatures to stage rallies in dozens of cities to protest upcoming "pseudo-elections," as Navalny and his supporters refer to them.

In Moscow, Navalny chanted "Swindlers and thieves" at a rally in the city centre Sunday before several police officers pounced on the 41-year-old opposition politician, knocking him to the ground and dragging him on to a bus.

Authorities said earlier Navalny would be charged with organising an unpermitted protest, adding he had been taken to a police station.

The opposition leader urged Muscovites not to give up.

"You are not rallying for me, but for yourselves and your future," he tweeted.

- 'Down with the czar' - 

 About 4,000 people turned up for the unsanctioned rally in Moscow, with many chanting "Down with the czar" and brandishing placards saying "Voters' strike."

Authorities beefed up security, dispatching police vans and passenger buses to the city centre, but police largely refrained from arresting protesters. A crowd of protesters was later allowed to walk down to Red Square.

One group of protesters walked several kilometres and reached the government headquarters as police watched on.

Authorities estimated the Moscow turnout at around 1,000 people.

Ahead of the Moscow rally police broke into Navalny's headquarters using a power saw. Police also detained several members of Navalny's team.

- 'Not scared' -

 More than 250 people were detained across the country, according to OVD-Info, an independent monitor.

Sunday's turnout paled in comparison to last year's protests when tens of thousands demonstrated against corruption among Russia's elite in March and June, 2017.

Police unleashed a severe crackdown afterwards, arresting more than 1,000 people including schoolchildren.

Navalny himself served three jail sentences of 15 days, 25 days and 20 days for organising unauthorised protests last year.

But many protesters said Sunday authorities would not intimidate them.

"These are not elections because we already know the result," Elena Ruzhe, 62, told AFP in Moscow.

"I'm not scared to protest," added the former culture ministry worker.

Protester Alexandra Fedorova, who wore a fur coat, said it was wrong not to let Navalny take part in the vote.

"I don't see a future. There is nobody to vote for," the 27-year-old said.

- 'I want change' - 

 Protesters expressed similar sentiments in the second city of Saint Petersburg where around 1,500 people rallied, some chanting "Russia without Putin" and "Putin is a thief."

"I want change," Andrei Petrov, 20, told AFP in the former imperial capital. "We are tired of living in this quagmire."

Earlier in the day opposition supporters protested in far eastern Russia and Siberia, including in the northern city of Yakutsk where people rallied despite temperatures of around minus 45 Celsius (minus 49 Fahrenheit).

In the Ural city of Yekaterinburg around 1,000 people turned up, with the city's mayor joining the crowd.

"What we are being offered now is not an election," the outspoken mayor, Yevgeny Roizman, told the gathering.

Navalny -- seen as the only politician able to take on Putin -- has built a robust protest movement, tapping into the anger of a younger generation yearning for change.

He says the upcoming election will be little more than a coronation of Putin who is expected to win a fourth presidential term, becoming the longest-serving Russian leader since Stalin.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned unsanctioned rallies would lead to "certain consequences" -- a thinly-veiled promise of punishment.

Last year Navalny mounted a forceful bid to run for president but officials ruled him ineligible due to a criminal conviction which he says is politically motivated.

Navalny has said he would use the full force of his campaign -- including over 200,000 volunteers -- to organise "voters' strikes" and encourage Russians to stay away from polling stations on election day.

After 18 years of leadership, both as president and prime minister, Putin fatigue is spreading across Russia.

But the post-Soviet turbulence of the 1990s remains deeply ingrained in Russia's collective psyche, making many reluctant to take to the streets, observers say.
Authorities detain hundreds of people, including Alexei Navalny, at anti-corruption protests across Russia.