Anti-Putin protests in Russia

Russian police on Saturday arrested hundreds of protesters rallying against President Vladimir Putin ahead of his inauguration on Monday, an independent monitor said.

Under the motto “He is not our tsar,” Russians have taken to the streets to decry a fourth term by President Vladimir Putin. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was detained along with many other protesters, a monitor says.

OVD-Info, a group monitoring political repression in Russia, said more than 350 people had been arrested nationwide. It said the largest number of arrests as of Saturday mid-afternoon was in Chelyabinsk, where 97 people were detained.

In central Moscow, police arrested opposition leader Alexei Navalny along with several others. “Navalny appeared on Pushkinskaya Square and was quickly detained,” said opposition politician Leoni Volkov. “The detention was absolutely illegal.”