Police detained more than 500 people at rallies in Siberia and Russia’s far east on Sunday as supporters of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny took to the streets to protest against his jailing, despite biting cold and the threat of arrest.
Rallies are also planned in Moscow later on Sunday, part of a campaign to win the release of president Vladimir Putin’s most prominent opponent. He was arrested on 17 January after returning from Germany where he had been recovering from a nerve agent poisoning in Russia last summer.
Police have so far detained an estimated 519 people, the OVD-Info protest monitor said. Police have said the protests have not been authorised and will be broken up as they were last weekend. OVD-Info said that more than 4,000 people were detained at the rallies last week.
In the far-eastern city of Vladivostok, where a rally began at 0200 GMT, police prevented protesters from accessing the centre, forcing them to relocate to the waterfront and the frozen waters…