Navalny, the chief architect of the rallies, was detained in Moscow shortly after they began at 2 p.m. local time. Thousands came out on Moscow’s central Tverskaya street for the unsanctioned protests and were met by a heavy police presence, which began detaining demonstrators en masse around 30 minutes after the rallies began. Also in Moscow, a warning over a loudspeaker urged people to “think of the consequences” and disperse now. The demonstrations appear to amount to the largest coordinated protests in Russia since the street rallies that broke out in 2011 and 2012 after a parliamentary election that opposition leaders decried as fraudulent. One of the slogans for Sunday’s rallies is “No one showed up,” a reference to the dismissal by authorities of Navalny’s popular support.

Source: Washington Post March 26, 2017 10:55 UTC