Police detained more than a hundred opposition activists on Saturday for taking part in a wave of anti-Kremlin protests across Russia in support of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny ahead of a presidential election in March. Under grey skies and intermittent rain, over two thousand people gathered in central Moscow's Pushkin Square and chanted "Russia will be free" and "Russia without Putin" before walking towards the Kremlin and parliament.
Police briefly detained a few people, but did not charge anyone. It was a different story at rallies in other cities however, and the OVD-Info monitoring group, a non-profit organisation, said 132 people had been detained in 25 towns. Navalny, who is serving a 20-day jail term for violating rules on public meetings, called the rally in Moscow and other cities to coincide with Putin's 65th birthday.
Putin, who has dominated Russia's political landscape for almost 18 years, is widely expected to run for what would be his fourth term. Navalny hopes to run too, despite the central election commission declaring him ineligible due to a suspended prison sentence he says was politically-motivated. One of the Moscow protesters held a homemade poster of Putin sitting on a mountain of banknotes wearing a crown with the legend: "Happy Birthday you little thief!"
Others carried copies of the Russian constitution and posters citing their right to protest, some waved Russian flags, and a few carried inflatable yellow ducks, a jokey reference to the fact that Navalny accused Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev of owning a lavish estate with a duck house. Medvedev called the allegations against him politically-motivated nonsense.
In St Petersburg, Putin's home city, some 1,500 activists waving red and white banners in Navalny's support gathered in a large public square before heading for the city's main street shouting "Putin is a thief" and "Freedom."