Aleksei Navalny Detained at Protest on Eve of Putin's Inauguration

The Russian police detained the opposition leader Alexei Navalny during a demonstration against President Vladimir V. Putin in Moscow on Saturday. Associated Press

Thousands of demonstrators crowded into one of Moscow’s main squares on Saturday as part of nationwide protests against the coming inauguration of President Vladimir V. Putin for a fourth term.

The opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny had called on Russians to take to the streets under the slogan “He is not our czar,” to register their opposition to Mr. Putin’s autocratic rule. The president is set to be inaugurated on Monday for a six-year term.

Shortly after Mr. Navalny arrived for a rally in central Moscow, he was detained by police officers and shoved into a van. Footage showed officers carrying a struggling Mr. Navalny out of the square by the legs and arms.

“Navalny appeared on Pushkinskaya and was quickly detained,” Leonid Volkov, an opposition politician, said in an online broadcast. “It was absolutely illegal.”

Russian police arrest anti-Putin protester in Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk in wave of opposition rallies across the country. https://t.co/f28BUQiK7y pic.twitter.com/4wpkogDIUE
— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) May 5, 2018

Police officers in riot gear also waded into the unauthorized gathering on Pushkin Square and were seen grabbing demonstrators and leading them away. There were no immediate moves to disperse the crowd. A helicopter hovered overhead.

News reports and social media postings said the protests had attracted hundreds or more in at least a dozen cities in the Far East and Siberia. Reports said the police arrested activists in several cities, including a Navalny supporter who was seized in a cafe in the city of Samara.

OVD-Info, a group that monitors political repression in Russia, said more than 350 people had been arrested by midafternoon. It said that more than 50 were held in Pushkin Square, including Mr. Navalny, and that the largest number of arrests had been in Chelyabinsk, where 97 people were detained. In Yakutsk, in the far northeast, 75 were detained but all had since been released, the group said.

Demonstrators also gathered in St. Petersburg, where the authorities had closed off Mars Field, a large park that is often a site of demonstrations; signs on the barricades said it was closed for urgent repair work.

Mr. Navalny had warned on Twitter in Russian of “the negative consequences” of not turning out to protest, according to media reports.

“If you stay at home, Putin’s gang will tear the country apart and deprive you personally of a future,” he said in a tweet.

The Kremlin critic has initiated protests across Russia in recent years at his own peril. Last year, after Mr. Navalny declared his intention to run for president, an assailant tossed a green chemical in his face and Mr. Navalny had feared losing most of his eyesight. He was eventually barred from running in the election.

Protesters braved icy temperatures in March to demonstrate across Russia against the lack of choice in an election that was seen as a lock for Mr. Putin.

Mr. Putin has been in power, either as president or prime minister, since 2000. He was re-elected president in March with more than 76 percent of the vote — his best election performance. But the opposition and some international observers reported widespread irregularities in the vote.

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