Protests erupted across Russia for the second weekend in a row as thousands demanded the release of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the chief critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Just like last weekend, Russian police arrested thousands in a heavy show of force. In Moscow alone, over 1,000 people were arrested, including Navalny’s wife Yulia, according to OVD-Info, an independent monitoring site. Close to 800 were arrested in St. Petersburg. Other cities including Vladivostok saw numerous clashes between police and protesters as well.
Navalny, 44, was detained on Jan. 17 upon returning to Moscow after five months in Germany recovering from a near-fatal poisoning with a nerve agent, widely believed to have been administered by Russia’s Federal Security Service. Russian officials claim that Navalny violated the terms of a suspended sentence he received in 2014 and have arrested him for 30 days, pending trial.
