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> 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> 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> 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> 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> 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> Mordolff/iStock(MOSCOW) — Russian police arrested more than 1,000 protesters at an anti-Kremlin opposition rally in Moscow on Saturday, raiding key opposition leaders before the demonstration even began and roughly corralling them into vans afterward.

The demonstrators were protesting to demand opposition candidates be allowed to take part in Moscow’s city council elections, after authorities barred several this month, setting off widespread anger among the city’s liberal society.

Several thousand protesters on Saturday tried to gather outside Moscow’s mayor’s office on the city’s main street. But police deployed in force to block the protest, placing hundreds of riot officers and buses around the building and arresting demonstrators ahead of the event.

Police wearing helmets and body armor put up barriers along several key streets and closed off the Kremlin. From there, they roughly pushed back the demonstrators, arresting hundreds.

Ahead of the protest, Moscow’s mayor, Sergey Sobyanin, on Twitter warned that “attempts at ultimatums, organization at disorders will lead to nothing good.”

“Order in the city will be ensured in accordance with the law,” he wrote.

OVD-Info, a group that monitors arrests, said at least 648 people had been detained by early evening in Moscow. Police said of the 3,500 protesters they say attended, at least 300 were arrested.

Police employed unusually aggressive tactics ahead of the demonstration, raiding the homes of key activists and arresting several this week, including several of the candidates barred from the election. A high-profile opposition politician, Dmitry Gudkov, was detained by police as he drove into Moscow on Saturday morning, his wife told the liberal channel, TV Rain.

Alexey Navalny, the country’s most prominent opposition figure, called for the protest. He, too, was arrested earlier this week and sentenced to 30 days in jail for organizing an authorized demonstration.

Another top opposition leader, Ilya Yashin, and two of Navalny’s key associates, Ivan Zhdanov and Lyubov Sobol, were also detained on Saturday.

Police also visited the offices of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, as well as TV Rain’s studios, while they were live-streaming the demonstration. Security camera footage posted online by one of Navalny’s supporters appeared to show masked officers bursting into the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s office and forcing people to lie on the floor.

Authorities largely prevented protesters from approaching the mayor’s office, heading them off on the narrow streets nearby. There, they tried to shove them back while pulling people out of the crowd one by one and sometimes clubbing people with batons.

Forced backward, the demonstrators began moving in large groups around the city’s avenues for hours, chased by squads of police. On one street, a group of people took shelter in a church, hiding behind its gates while a line of helmeted police looked on.

The protest was called after election authorities refused to register almost a dozen well-known opposition candidates for the city council election on September 8. Moscow’s election commission has said some of the thousands of signatures that the candidates are required to collect were fabricated, but critics have said it a ploy to keep the opposition off the ballot.

The move touched off unusual anger among Russian liberal society, who see it as a sign that the Kremlin under president Vladimir Putin will now not tolerate even low-level, legal political opposition. The searches and arrests targeting the candidates since have reinforced that belief, observers said.

“The searches against independent candidates for Moscow’s city parliament mean that legal politics has finished in Russia. From now on in practice they will only allow individuals agreed in advance, and all the rest they will try to frighten and declare criminals,” an op-ed in the renowned opposition investigative newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, said this week.

Moscow’s city council, which has 45 seats, manages a huge municipal budget and is currently controlled by the ruling Kremlin party, United Russia. A number of the candidates arrested this week, such as Yashin, Sobol and Zhdanov, have built a following beyond Moscow through their activism, publishing investigations into alleged corruption and other abuses by officials. </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> Moscow: Police detained hundreds of protesters at an unauthorised opposition gathering in Moscow on Saturday, as authorities upped the pressure on top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny by launching a criminal probe into his anti-graft group.

Crowds of people marched in the capital’s central boulevards for a protest “stroll” over the refusal by officials to let a number of Opposition candidates run in September polls for city parliament seats.

Most candidates and Opposition leaders, including Navalny, are being held by police following a protest rally last weekend, in which 1,400 demonstrators were detained.

On Saturday, riot police were deployed in large numbers in central Moscow, some shops and cafes were shut, metal barriers were erected and the mobile internet was down for several hours. At least 300 people were detained by police about two hours into the rally, according to OVD-Info, a non-governmental organisation that operates a hotline for detainees. Lyubov Sobol, currently three weeks into a hunger strike after being barred from taking part in the local polls and an ally of key opposition leader Navalny, was dragged from a taxi and detained on Saturday as she set off for the rally.
Hundreds of people are detained at anti-corruption protest rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg and many other towns, including opposition leader Alexei Navalny.