Thousands defy crackdown in Moscow’s biggest protest for years

Law enforcement officers detain a man after a rally to demand authorities allow opposition candidates to run in the upcoming local election in Moscow, Russia 10 August, 2019 - Reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters): Tens of thousands of Russians staged what a monitoring group called the country’s biggest political protest for eight years on Saturday, defying a crackdown to demand free elections to Moscow’s city legislature. 

Police rounded up scores of people after the demonstration in Moscow and at another rally in St Petersburg, and detained a leading opposition figure before it began. But the response from the authorities was milder than the previous week when more than 1,000 protesters were detained, sometimes violently. 

The White Counter monitoring group said up to 60,000 people had attended the Moscow rally, describing it as the biggest in Russia for eight years. Police put turnout at 20,000. 

A month of demonstrations over elections for the Moscow city legislature have turned into the biggest sustained protest movement in Russia since 2011-2013, when protesters took to the streets against perceived electoral fraud.

Crowds at the rally in Moscow roared “Down with the tsar!” and waved Russian flags. They are demanding that opposition-minded candidates be permitted to run in a city election next month after they were not allowed onto the ballot.

Putin and the Kremlin have so far avoided commenting on the unrest over the Moscow city elections.