Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, the former KGB operative, knows how to deal with dissent. He crushes it either through rigged elections or using the State apparatus.
Alexei Navalny courageously returned to Russia after his near fatal poisoning with a nerve agent. An attack which most observers was done at the direction of Putin.
Putin will put down the dissent by any means necessary. No wonder the deposed Trump likes Putin. These are tactics the ex-President employed, ultimately without success, in his futile attempt to stay in power.
Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 1.23.2021
Police have rounded up more than 3,000 people at rallies across the country in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. Over 1,000 people were detained in Moscow alone.
Protests demanding the release of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny erupted in cities across Russia on Saturday, with a demonstration in Moscow extending into the evening.
More than 3,000 people, including a politician, have been detained, according to the OVD-Info protest monitor. Around 90 rallies took place in over 60 cities across the country.
Of those, at least 1,167 people were detained in the capital Moscow and over 460 in St Petersburg.
Ahead of the demonstrations, police warned that they would be “immediately suppressed.”
Navalny was arrested on his return to Russia from Germany on January 17, following a near-fatal poisoning with a nerve agent.
He was handed a 30-day jail term for violating the terms of a suspended sentence he was given in 2014 on fraud charges. The 44-year-old says the charges are politically motivated.
Thousands of people gathered in central Moscow to march from central Pushkin Square to the Kremlin. The Interior Ministry estimated 4,000 people attended. Several news agencies reported much higher figures, putting the total number of protesters between 20,000 and 40,000.
DW’s Russia correspondent Emily Sherwin reported that despite the arrests, protesters in Moscow remained on the streets well into the evening.
“They’re calling for Navalny to be freed and chanting ‘We are the power here!’ — determined in the face of riot police,” she said.
https://www.dw.com/en/russia-police-detain-thousands-at-pro-navalny-protests/a-56321592
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