Police make 100 arrests in anti-Putin gathering

Russian police detained more than 100 people yesterday, including leaders of the largest protest movement against Vladimir Putin’s 12-year rule, as hundreds rallied against him weeks after his re-election to the presidency.

At least 500 protesters gathered near Moscow’s largest television tower at Ostankino to condemn what they said was the Kremlin’s domination of the media and to denounce a recent documentary that portrayed them as traitors.

“Putin’s most important weapons are lies and propaganda and they are just as effective at protecting him as police batons,” said former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov, minutes before riot police surrounded him and pushed him into a police van.

Protest leader Sergei Udaltsov, who is co-ordinator of opposition group Left Front, was also detained minutes after joining the demonstration. The rally had not been approved by city authorities.

A wave of protests began in December over allegations of fraud in an election that gave Mr Putin’s United Russia party a small parliamentary majority. Mr Putin’s near-64 per cent victory in a separate presidential election in March has taken some of the wind out of the protests, but they show no sign of stopping.

Last week, NTV television, controlled by state-run gas giant Gazprom, suggested the White House was funding the protests to undermine Mr Putin, and said demonstrators were given cash and biscuits to take part.

Russian television is rarely critical of the Kremlin and is seen by many Russians as Mr Putin’s mouthpiece.

Yesterday protesters laid flowers, packets of biscuits and fake dollar bills outside the NTV studios at the Ostankino complex.