Hundreds detained and beaten in Moscow as Navalny supporters take to the streets to protest

Over 1,400 people were detained in Moscow on Tuesday

Credit: Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP

Hundreds of riot police filled Moscow’s streets on Tuesday night, arresting nearly 1,500 more people protesting the jailing of opposition figure Alexei Navalny.

Numerous street demonstrations erupted across the city after a judge sentenced Mr Navalny to nearly three years in jail for violating the terms of his parole while he was in a coma after being poisoned.

Over 1,400 people were detained on Tuesday, most of them in Moscow, according to the activist group OVD-Info, bringing the total including last weekend’s unrest to over 6,000.

Detention facilities in the Russian capital by Wednesday were apparently so full that human rights activists and detainees reported having to spend the night in a police van due to the lack of jail space.

Mr Navalny was arrested last month after he returned to Russia for the first time since he was poisoned — he alleges by the Kremlin — and airlifted to Germany where he spent months recovering after falling into a weekslong coma.

At the urging of Mr Navalny and his team, tens of thousands across Russia’s 11 time zones have since rallied for two straight weekends in a wave of protests unseen for over a decade.

Authorities have responded forcefully, detaining thousands and rounding up Mr Navalny’s closest allies in Moscow and placing them in custody or under house arrest. They are accused of violating coronavirus restrictions by calling for the demonstrations.

The guilty verdict for the 44-year-old politician and anti-corruption crusader late on Tuesday was met with condemnation in the West and sent shockwaves across Russian society.

Moscow's city centre was full of riot police on Tuesday night

Credit: Yuri Kochetkov/EPA

Despite an unprecedented police presence, several thousand people marched across central Moscow late into the night, chanting “Freedom!” and “Putin, resign!”

Moscow’s central streets, dotted with luxury stores and glittering with seasonal decorations, quickly turned into a battlefield as hundreds of black-clad riot police began to round down and beat protesters.

In one of the most striking scenes, about a hundred protesters were surrounded by officers and began to chant “We’re unarmed!” raising their hands even as the police charged at them with batons.

Several thousand took to the streets in Moscow late on Tuesday

Credit: Pavel Golovkin/AP

State-owned news agency Tass on Wednesday morning quoted a law enforcement source saying that officials were investigating reports of excessive use of violence, including the vicious beating of a journalist in a press vest that was caught on camera on Tuesday night.

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, on Wednesday sought to defend the mayhem on Moscow streets on Tuesday night, saying that because the protests were unauthorised they were justified in being met with a "harsh police response."

He said authorities would look into possible cases of police brutality.

The heavy-handed response is a clear message to Russians that President Vladimir Putin intends to fight his opponents whatever it takes, Kremlin watchers say.

“The regime has clearly chosen to stay in power at any price, so we shouldn’t be surprised that those pretty Moscow streets, still adorned with Christmas decorations, were filled up with occupation troops straight from Star Wars movies,” Sergei Guriev, a prominent Russian economist and Navalny supporter, told the Ekho Moskvy radio station on Wednesday.