Alexei Navalny, Putin critic and Russian opposition leader, arrested as thousands protest on Russia Day

Anna Arutunyan and John Bacon | Special for USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny arrested ahead of protest Thousands of anti-government activists challenging President Vladimir Putin's rule were protesting across Russia on Monday

MOSCOW — Thousands of anti-corruption demonstrators took to the streets Monday in Moscow and other Russian cities on Russia Day for the biggest wave of protests in five years. Police arrested protest leader and presidential hopeful Alexei Navalny an hour before the march here began after he changed the previously approved gathering place.

“Hello, this is Yulia Navalnaya,” his wife tweeted from Navalny's account. “Happy holidays. Alexei has been detained in the entrance to his home. He said to pass on that plans haven’t changed: Tverskaya.”

Authorities had initially allowed 15,000 demonstrators to hold a rally on Sakharov Avenue. But late Sunday night, Navalny wrote on his blog that refusals by authorities to allow sound equipment and pressure on businessmen hired by Navalny’s supporters to provide sound equipment forced him to move the venue to Tverskaya Street, which was blocked off for festivities for Russia Day, a national holiday.

The Russian government called the change a “provocation” and vowed a harsh crackdown on violators who turned up for what in effect became an unsanctioned protest.

More than 1,000 people were arrested across Russia, the Associated Press reported. Navalny was taken to court Monday evening and was sentenced to 30 days in jail shortly after midnight for repeated violations of the law on public gatherings.

Demonstrators earlier chanted "Free Navalny" and "Navalny for president" as riot police used batons to push crowds away from metal detectors and toward the Kremlin. Police were seen snatching protesters out of the crowd at random and dragging them to police trucks parked nearby.

“They let me through the metal detectors for the public holiday (on Tverskaya) but they took away my placard,” said Alexander Vereshchagin, 17, a Navalny supporter who showed up for the demonstration despite threats of a crackdown.

“I don’t see a future for the country,” said his friend, Artyom Ionov, 16. “I will be starting college and I don’t even know what (profession) to choose. There is nothing on the horizon.”

​Alexander Tyurin, 41, another protester, told AFP that Russian President Vladimir Putin, after 17 years in charge, "has usurped all power. ... I work in a construction company, and everything is mired in corruption."

Monday’s protests — held in more than 160 cities — came after Navalny and his supporters held similar rallies in March calling on authorities to investigate allegations of corruption against Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

The first protests were sparked by a film made in March by Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation that alleged Medvedev amassed personal property worth millions. Police arrested more than 1,000 protesters during the March 26 demonstrations. Navalny, 41, was convicted the next day of resisting police orders and organizing a public gathering without a permit, sentenced to 15 days in jail and fined $350.

The demonstration Monday was part of the biggest protest wave since 2011, when Russians, mainly in Moscow and St. Petersburg, took to the streets voicing anger at a rigged election and Putin’s return for a third presidential term.

This spring, however, the focus of protests has been less about Putin and more about specific issues like corruption and has spread to other regions. Thousands turned up for demonstrations from Kaliningrad in the west to Vladivostok in the east. Navalny bypassed state TV and broadcast footage of the protests on YouTube.

“In 2011, Navalny was holding protests that were more about revolution,” said Sergei Chubenko, a student who protested Monday on Tverskaya Street. “Now it’s about demanding specific changes.”

Demonstrations this spring also included long-haul truckers protesting a state-imposed road tax and Muscovites opposing city plans to demolish 4,500 Soviet-era apartments and replace them with high-rises.

“These protests have a specific aim — defying the corruption of the authorities. This defiance is uniting everyone who is not getting a piece of the (corrupt) action,” Alexei Tsvetkov, a left-wing political activist, wrote in a Facebook post before heading to the protests Monday. “This defiance is becoming a national idea at this point, regardless of one’s specific views.”

An April poll by the Levada Center showed that 38% of respondents approved of those who took part in the March 26 anti-corruption protests. Navalny’s recognition has grown from 6% in 2011 to 55%, with 10% saying they would vote for him as president.

In Moscow and elsewhere in the country, young people and those still in school accounted for a significant portion of Navalny's growing base through the use of social media. “Among young people, dissatisfaction and defiance is growing." Lev Gudkov, head of the Levada Center, said in an April interview published on the polling center’s website.

The protests on Tverskaya Street saw a large number of teenagers, some overheard on their cellphones telling their parents they were OK. Demonstrators mixed with Muscovites who had turned out for a Russia Day re-enactment festival that had Tverskaya blocked off. Participants — many dressed in historical costume — looked on with tension as riot police tried to corral protesters between the tents.

Russia’s government has responded differently to the new wave of protests than in the past by making it more difficult for Navalny to hold sanctioned protests.

“In 2011-12 the government was caught off guard and swung from tolerance to excessive force with little real reason or signal,” said Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russian politics and security at the Institute of International Relations in Prague. "The authorities now play a longer, smarter game, mixing a degree of repression and capricious prosecutions with a basic level of tolerance. The aim is to let the protests burn themselves out, not stamp them out.”

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Navalny has been pressing a bid to oppose Putin in next year's presidential election. Navalny has been opening campaign offices across the country and collecting signatures required to be placed on the ballot.

Putin has not announced his intentions for 2018, but it is widely assumed he will seek re-election.

Bacon reported from McLean, Va.