Russian police have arrested hundreds of people and broken up protests in Moscow and St Petersburg following Vladimir Putin’s victory in the presidential election.
Police moved in to disperse a protest at Pushkin Square in central Moscow, after hundreds of people refused to leave the venue at the end of a larger rally earlier.
Activists who installed themselves on top of a fountain in the square were pulled off by their legs and dragged away by their hands and feet.
Riot police cleared the square, moving away even bystanders that had not been at the rally. “Power to millions, not to the police!” and “Russia without Putin!” people shouted.
Moscow police also arrested dozens of protesters at a separate unsanctioned event near the central election commission, including the leader of the Other Russia radical opposition group Eduard Limonov.
The Interfax news agency quoted a police source as saying that around 150 people were detained at the actions in Moscow, but comments posted on social networks by activists suggested the final figure could be even higher.
Ilya Ponomaryev, one of the few deputies in the Russian parliament to support the protest movement, told Interfax that as many as 1,000 people could have been arrested in the city.
Police in Russia’s second city of St Petersburg also broke up an unsanctioned opposition protest, detaining hundreds of people.
—————–http://www.rte.ie