As Moscow gears up to celebrate its victory in World War II, 67 years ago Wednesday, the shadow of political conflict shrouds the capital as hundreds of arrests cloud Victory Day festivities.
Police said over 200 arrests were made Tuesday and overnight Wednesday on the eve of the anniversary, including repeat detentions for Left-Front leader Sergei Udaltsov and anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, who was arrested twice in a single evening, Interfax reported. Socialite Kseniya Sobchack and State Duma Deputy Dmitry Gudkov were also among those arrested during the protests against President Vladimir Putin‘s inauguration, though they were later released.
A group of hundreds of protestors spent most of the day Tuesday on Chistoprudny Bulvar, using large rolls of plastic sheeting attached to the trees above the heads of the protesters to cover them from the rain. Several activists were handing out free sandwiches and hot tea. Many people brought plastic camping mats to sleep on.
At about 7:30 p.m. teams of OMON riot police armed with batons dashed toward protesters, many of whom did not have time to escape arrest. Dozens were detained, largely without the use of force.
The protesters fled to the Kitai-Gorod metro station on foot, where riot police and at least a dozen police vans were already waiting for them. Groups of demonstrators dispersed themselves throughout the city, and arrests continued as police pursued protesters on foot and in cars.
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Nothing to see here, just a President doing a little house cleaning among his population… A Russian President showing an American president how it’s done. China is also giving public lessons these days on suppression of “dissidents and anti-government offenders”.
When will the young President from Kenya be demonstrating to these hard-liners that he, too, can keep his proles in line? I suspect that he will start his show soon…
My those Russian police must be efficient because that is about the amount of protestors there was in entirety lol.
If it weren’t for the rain, there may have been perhaps a few more protestors, but the money being paid by the Cabal obviously was not enough for many to wish to brave the rain.