More than 500 people have been detained across Russia in a crackdown on anti-war protests in two dozen cities across Russia, according to independent monitoring group OVD-Info.
About 100 arrests were made in protests in St. Petersburg after President Vladimir Putin’s announcement of a partial mobilization to increase the availability of troops for the war in Ukraine.
Photos released on OVD-Info’s Telegram channel showed police officers in St Petersburg using batons against protesters.
Videos show police trying to contain a crowd gathered at Isakiivskiy Cathedral behind barriers, amid shouts of “no mobilisation”.
Social media videos geolocated by CNN showed protests in several cities, each involving what appeared to have been a few dozen people.
Videos from Moscow showed protesters being led away by police at a demonstration in the center of the city.
A video posted by a journalist from Moscow web publication The Village includes dozens of people on Arbatskaya Street shouting “let him go” as a man is taken away.
There was also a video from the city of Yekaterinburg of a fight between police and protesters.
As of 8 pm Moscow time, 535 people were detained in 30 cities across Russia, according to OVD-Info.
The arrests took place in Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk, Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk, Ulan-Ude, Tomsk, Ufa, Perm, Belgorod and Moscow, according to the OVD-info count.
The Moscow prosecutor’s office issued a statement Wednesday warning citizens against participating in protests, threatening those with up to 15 years in prison.
Source: CNN Brasil
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