Riot police detained hundreds of anti-corruption protesters and arrested opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Moscow on Monday, June 12.
There were over 100 rallies in cities and towns across all of Russia’s 11 time zones.
They were timed to coincide with Russia Day, a national holiday, leaving many young people free of school.
Navalny, a strong critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, called for the protests, drawing out crowds across the country as he did in March.
“Russia without Putin” and “Russia will be free” chanted demonstrators, and “corruption kills the future.”
Numerous protesters have lived only under Putin, including three 16-year-old girls who brought sheets of paper to the Moscow protest to write the articles of the Russian Constitution.
Schools and universities had warned students against going to the rally, and had reprimanded many who went to the protests in March.
Ivan Sukhoruchenkov, 19, attended with four university classmates to protest what he described as “stagnation of the political system.”
“Change is always good,” Sukhoruchenkov said, adding that he and his friends were concerned about corruption.
Navalny has announced he will seek the presidency in an election next year and has centered his claim on an anti-corruption effort. The lawyer and political activist is a long-shot according to polls, which continue to confirm Putin’s solid popularity.
Navalny was arrested as he left their Moscow home to attend the protest, according to his wife.
Police said Navalny violated the law on organizing public meetings and had disobeyed a police officer.
Authorities in Moscow said the protest was illegal and used batons and tear gas to reduce the crowd. Other rallies were sanctioned by authorities and peaceful.
The Moscow rally was originally sanctioned but after contractors were unable to erect a stage at the agreed upon venue, Navalny urged protesters to gather on Tverskaya Street. Tverskaya is the most expensive shopping street in Moscow and was closed to traffic for the Russia Day festivities.
Protest supporters were younger than many in the Kremlin expected, believing most young people to be a-political.
Roman, a 19-year-old student, said he was sick of the Putin system.
“It’s been unchanged for the last 17 years. There is so much evidence that our officials are stealing with impunity.”
The Interior Ministry pegged the protest at 4,500 though Reuters reporters estimated turnout reached the low tens of thousands.
The protests come on the heels of similar protests Navalny spurred in March. He was fined and jailed for 15 days for his role in those protests. They were the largest since anti-Kremlin demonstrations in 2012.
Navalny’s shot at the presidency is long and unlikely, according to polls, though the protests may raise his profile.
“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,” he wrote in a blog post last week.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters on Monday that the U.S. strongly condemned the detention of hundreds of peaceful protesters, human rights observers, and journalists.
He said the government would call on Russia to immediately release all peaceful protesters.
“The Russian people, like people everywhere deserve the government’s support to open and ideas, transparent and accountable governance, equal treatment in the law and ability to exercise their rights without fear and retribution,” said Spicer.
With growing opposition sentiment in Russia, authorities are seeking a strategy to contain it without exacerbating tensions.
Most protests were allowed to take place, though in Moscow the crowd was forcibly reduced in size.
Some of the arrests were violent with police using batons and sometimes dragging protesters along the street.
Navalny faces another 15-day jail sentence.
