The Russian opposition figurehead Alexei Navalny and 15 others have been arrested in Moscow after he attempted to lead a protest before a presidential election that is expected to return Vladimir Putin to power for another six years.



Navalny, 41, was wrestled to the ground by officers on Sunday as he walked up Tverskaya, Moscow’s main thoroughfare. Amid chaotic scenes, police with truncheons fought off supporters who attempted to pull him free.

His arrest came shortly after police had forced their way into his headquarters in Moscow in an apparent attempt to disrupt an online broadcast of nationwide opposition rallies. Police said they were looking for a bomb.

Navalny, tweeting from a police van, said: “I have been detained. This means nothing. You are not rallying for me, but for yourselves and your future.”

He was later released without charge, his lawyer told Reuters, although he will have face court at a later date.

The anti-corruption campaigner, who has a large social media following, had called for rallies in support of an opposition boycott of the election.

The Kremlin critic is barred from standing for public office after being convicted on fraud charges that he says were trumped up to prevent him from challenging Putin at the ballot box.

Задержание одного человека теряет малейший смысл, если нас много. Кто-нибудь, придите и замените меня pic.twitter.com/TODVdF5lEm — Alexey Navalny (@navalny) January 28, 2018

Authorities in Moscow and St Petersburg refused to give permission for the protests. In Moscow, about 2,000 people defied bitter cold and a heavy police presence to gather in Pushkin Square, a short walk from the Kremlin.

“Putin is a thief!” the protesters chanted. “Six more years? No thanks!” read one sign. Pyotr Kuvshinov, a 20-year-old student, said: “These are not elections, if there is no choice. They have stolen our candidate from us.”

Youthful opposition members at one point scaled lampposts on the square and unfurled a Russian flag to cheers from the crowd. Protesters later briefly marched towards the Kremlin. Scattered protests continued across Moscow into Sunday night, including outside the White House, the Russian government building.

Vladimir, a 70-year-old academic who attended the rally in Moscow, said: “We want to live in a democratic country. But people in our country have been taught not to think.”

In St Petersburg, where police cracked down hard on an opposition rally in October on Putin’s 65th birthday, about 2,000 people demonstrated in the centre of the city. Ten people were arrested.

Navalny supporters also rallied in about 100 cities across Russia, from Vladivostok to Kaliningrad.

In Cheboksary, central Russia, 50 people were detained, while 45 people were taken into custody at a rally in Ufa, according to OVD-Info, a non-governmental group that tracks arrests. Other opposition supporters braved temperatures of minus 45C to attend a protest in Yakutsk, Siberia.

Navalny told supporters: ‘You are not rallying for me, but for yourselves and your future.’ Photograph: Pavel Golovkin/AP

However, numbers at the rallies were far down on March and June, when Navalny brought tens of thousands of people out on to the streets to protest over alleged corruption by Dmitry Medvedev, the prime minister.

Police were also far more restrained, detaining about 250 people nationwide compared with more than 1,000 in June.

Navalny has already served three protest-related prison sentences since March, and he was nearly blinded in one eye last year when a Kremlin supporter with alleged links to the security services threw a chemical in his face.

Although Navalny has huge support among Russian liberals, many opposition members remain suspicious of him because of his links to Russia’s nationalist movement. Yulia, a protester in Moscow, said: “I’m here because I hate Putin, not because I like Navalny.”

Navalny says Putin is afraid to face genuine challengers at elections, and accuses the Kremlin of handpicking and approving rival candidates. Although Navalny is polling at about 2%, his supporters say an election campaign would have allowed him to capitalise on growing discontent over corruption and rising poverty.

There is precedent for this: Navalny unexpectedly took almost 30% of the vote at Moscow’s mayoral election in 2013, securing second place and almost forcing the Kremlin’s candidate into an embarrassing run-off.

The rallies on Sunday are unlikely to set alarm bells ringing in the Kremlin, which is keen to present a positive image of Russia before the World Cup in June. They also present Navalny with the challenge of rejuvenating his protest movement before the election.

Speaking in an interview before the rallies, Gleb Pavlovsky, a former Kremlin spin doctor who now supports the opposition, said: “Navalny has done a very important thing – he has returned politics to Russia. But Navalny has a big problem – he is unable to capitalise on his success.”