Supporters of opposition leader Alexei Navalny rallied across Russia on Saturday, heeding his call to push authorities to let him enter the presidential race.
The wave of demonstrations on the 65th birthday of President Vladimir Putin comes as Mr. Navalny is serving a 20-day jail term for calling for an unsanctioned protest.
Mr. Navalny’s headquarters said that protests were set to be held in nearly 80 Russian cities.
Rallies numbering from a few dozen to a few hundred people were held in several cities in Russia’s far east and Siberia.
No sanction
Most of the demonstrations have not been sanctioned by authorities even as the police detained a clutch of protesters and activists in some cities.
In Moscow, several hundred protesters, most of them young, gathered on Moscow’s downtown Pushkinskaya Square, waving Russian flags and chanting “Russia will be free!” and “Free Navalny!”
Police warned the demonstrators that the rally had not been sanctioned and urged them to disperse, but did not immediately move to break up the protest.
Police and the National Guard showed up in full force in downtown Moscow and in St. Petersburg, where a rally was set to be held later on Saturday.
