Russian leading opposition figure Alexei Navalny meets with his supporters as part of his presidential election campaign rally in Tula, Russia, May 27, 2017. Courtesy of Evgeny Feldman/THIS IS NAVALNY Project/Handout via REUTERS

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Police detained Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny at the entrance of his home on Monday, just before an unsanctioned rally he was going to hold in central Moscow, but the protest will still go ahead, his wife said on Twitter.

Electricity in Navalny’s office was switched off, his spokeswoman said in a separate Twitter message. A live Internet feed run from Navalny’s office went off air.</s>Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption "Police are pulling people out at random" - BBC reporter at the scene

Hundreds of people have been detained at anti-corruption rallies in Moscow and St Petersburg.

Riot police in central Moscow were picking protesters out of the crowd at random, a BBC correspondent at the demonstration has said.

Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was detained at his home ahead of the protests, according to his wife.

Thousands of supporters have heeded his call to take to the streets of Moscow and other Russian cities.

OVD-Info, an independent NGO, told Russian media that 600 people had been detained at the Moscow protest.

Police in Moscow say about 5,000 took part in the demonstration there, Interfax news agency reports.

Russia's interior ministry says that about 3,500 people attended the protest in St Petersburg, and 500 were detained.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Young people were detained at the protest in St Petersburg

"Alexei [Navalny] has been arrested in the entrance to our block of flats," Yuliya Navalnaya wrote on Twitter, ahead of the demonstration.

Mr Navalny, who intends to stand for the Russian presidency next year, had been due to attend the unauthorised rally in central Moscow.

'Many young plucked from the crowd' - by BBC's Sarah Rainsford, central Moscow

Image copyright EPA

This was a peculiar protest.

At first it was hard to tell who was taking part. Tverskaya Street was full of families marking Russia Day with entertainers in historical costumes.

Then thousands of protesters turned up. Huge numbers of riot police were right behind them.

First they announced that the rally was illegal then the arrests began. We saw dozens of people plucked from the crowd - many of them young - and dragged roughly towards police buses.

By calling people to an unauthorised rally, Alexei Navalny knew he was risking a confrontation. The police duly obliged.

But people I spoke to said they knew the risk and still wanted their voices to be heard. Among other things, those voices chanted loudly: "Putin, thief!" and "Russia will be free".

In a live broadcast by the Russian liberal TV channel, Dozhd, protesters in St Petersburg could be heard shouting "shame" as they were detained by police. Among those arrested was Maxim Reznik, the city's legislative assembly deputy.

Prominent activist Daniil Ken said he was arrested as he left his home in St Petersburg. He urged people to join the rally at the city's Champ de Mars square. "Go for me, please!" he tweeted. He has since been released.

Police had earlier detained several people at demonstrations in the cities of Vladivostok, Blagoveshchensk and Kazan.

What are the protests about?

Mr Navalny called on Russians to take to the streets on Monday - Russia Day - to express their anger at alleged corruption at the highest levels.

The anti-corruption campaigner uses YouTube, tweets and blogs to reach new audiences.

A video posted in March accuses Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev of accumulating a vast private fortune. Mr Medvedev denies the claims. The video, which includes the accusation that the PM has a duck house on one of his properties, has been viewed nearly 23 million times.

In a call for people to join him on Monday, Mr Navalny wrote: "I want changes. I want to live in a modern democratic state and I want our taxes to be converted into roads, schools and hospitals, not into yachts, palaces and vineyards."

Mr Navalny was earlier granted permission to hold a rally at Sakharova Avenue but changed the location - without permission - on the eve of the demonstration to Tverskaya Street, near the Kremlin.

The protest was called over government plans to demolish Soviet-era apartment blocks in the city.

Image copyright EPA Image caption This woman draped herself in the colours of the Russian flag

Permission was granted for demonstrations in 169 locations across the country, some of which were broadcast live on the Navalny Live YouTube channel.

The protests coincided with a series of official events - including festivals, concerts and military enactments - taking place across the country to mark Russia Day, the national holiday dedicated to the 1990 declaration of sovereignty.

Similar rallies led by Mr Navalny in March led to hundreds of arrests.

Those protests were the largest since 2012, drawing thousands of people - including many teenagers - to rallies nationwide, angered by a report published by Mr Navalny that accused Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev of corruption.

Are you at or planning to attend the protest? Share your views and experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.

Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:</s>Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny Is Detained On Day Of Protests

Police prevented the organizer of demonstrations against Russian President Vladimir Putin from visiting a Moscow rally, arresting Alexei Navalny outside his home Monday. Thousands of protesters turned out anyway, and dozens of detentions were reported in both Moscow and St. Petersburg.

"Alexei was detained at the entrance of the house," his wife, Julia Bulk, wrote on Navalny's Twitter feed. She posted a photo showing police taking her husband to a police vehicle, captioning the photo, "Russia Day!"

Other images from the day show thousands of demonstrators in St. Petersburg chanting slogans against Putin — and black-clad police marching through the crowd, making arrests and pulling people off of monuments.

Police say Navalny was detained for breaking laws regarding public meetings and obeying authorities, the Interfax news agency reports. It adds that the opposition leader ran into problems setting up a planned demonstration on Sakharov Avenue, and instead told his allies on Sunday to gather on Tverskaya Street.

Navalny, an opposition leader who was also arrested for organizing large anti-Putin protests in March, had called for national demonstrations on the holiday that marks Russia's formal emergence from the Soviet era in 1990. He's hoping to challenge Putin in next year's presidential election, delivering speeches around the country, as NPR's Lucian Kim reported last week.

The center of the Moscow protest is at Pushkin Square — and while NPR's Mary Louise Kelly says the crowd there is huge, she adds that it's also difficult to ascertain how many people are there for Navalny's cause, and how many for the national holiday.

"There are people walking around the streets in World War I uniforms," Mary Louise says. "There are big stages set up for concerts."

She adds that while the mood in the square had seemed peaceful earlier Monday, "the situation is changing very quickly" with "images streaming in of police and protesters pushing toward one another" as bystanders struggle to get out of the way.

The arrests began, Mary Louise says, after the crowd began chanting — something the authorities had warned them not to do.</s>MOSCOW (AP) - Police in Russia's second-largest city have arrested scores of people who gathered in a park in St. Petersburg's center for an unsanctioned opposition protest.

An Associated Press reporter saw about 50 protesters seized by police in the gathering at Mars Field.

 The protest Monday was part of a day of demonstrations throughout Russia spearheaded by Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption campaigner who has emerged as Russia's most prominent opposition figure and who has announced he intends to run for president next year.

As police detained demonstrators, hundreds of others shouted slogans including "Putin is a thief" and "Shame!"

Navalny himself was arrested Monday afternoon outside his home in Moscow as he headed for an unsanctioned protest rally. Authorities had given permission for the rally, but Navalny late Sunday called for the location to change to one of Moscow's main avenues. He said interference had prevented contractors from building a stage at the agreed venue.

Navalny's wife, Yulia, said on his Twitter feed that he was arrested about a half-hour before the demonstration was to begin. There was no immediate statement from police.

A spokeswoman for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny says electricity has been cut at Navalny's offices in Moscow.

Kira Yarmysh tweeted the information shortly after Navalny was reportedly arrested outside his Moscow home while on his way to an unsanctioned protest demonstration.

 Navalny's Fund for Fighting Corruption had been providing updates on protests throughout the country Monday.

Russian police say Navalny has been arrested on charges of that could bring him 15 days in jail.

In a statement reported by state news agency Tass, police said Navalny would be charged with failure to follow police orders and violation of public order.

Although city authorities had agreed to a location for the Moscow protest, Navalny called for it to be moved to Tverskaya Street, one of Moscow's main thoroughfares. He said contractors hired to build a stage at the agreed-upon venue could not do their work after apparently coming under official pressure.

Tverskaya, known in Soviet times as Gorky Street, was closed off to traffic on Monday for an extensive commemoration of the national holiday Russia Day, including people dressed in historical Russian costumes.

After the change, Moscow police warned that "any provocative actions from the protesters' side will be considered a threat to public order and will be immediately suppressed."

A regional security official, Vladimir Chernikov, told Ekho Moskvy radio that police would not interfere with demonstrators on the street — as long as they did not carry placards or shout slogans.

More than 1,000 protesters were arrested at a similar rally March 26.

The protests in March took place in scores of cities across the country, the largest show of discontent in years and a challenge to President Vladimir Putin's dominance of the country.

The Kremlin has long sought to cast the opposition as a phenomenon of a privileged, Westernized urban elite out of touch with people in Russia's far-flung regions. But Monday's protests could demonstrate that it has significant support throughout the vast country.

Navalny's website reported Monday that protests were held in more than a half-dozen cities in the Far East, including the major Pacific ports of Vladivostok and Khabarovsk and in Siberia's Barnaul. Photos on the website suggested turnouts of hundreds at the rallies.

Eleven demonstrators were arrested in Vladivostok, according to OVD-Info, a website that monitors political repressions.

Navalny has become the most prominent figure in an opposition that has been troubled by factional disputes. He focuses on corruption issues and has attracted a wide following through savvy use of internet video. His report on alleged corruption connected to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was the focus of the March protests.

Navalny has announced his candidacy for the presidential election in 2018. He was jailed for 15 days after the March protests. In April, he suffered damage to one eye after an attacker doused his face with a green antiseptic liquid.</s>Russian opposition leader and government critic Alexei Navalny was detained just before a protest in Moscow, his wife said Monday.

Yulia Navalny wrote on Twitter that “Alexei has been arrested in the entrance to our block of flats,” but added that “the plans will not change.”

Alexei Navalny had called on supporters to attend anti-Putin and anti-corruption protests across the country.

Ahead of the demonstrations, Reuters reported increased police presence. Monday is Russia Day, a national holiday.

There were several arrests at protests in the east of the country, the BBC reported. At least 10 people were detained at a rally in the city of Vladivostok, while four people were also arrested in Blagoveshchensk and at least one other in Kazan.

Navalny intends to challenge Putin in this year’s election.</s>MOSCOW – Protests spearheaded by prominent opposition figure Alexei Navalny were taking place across the country on Monday, but Navalny himself was reportedly arrested outside his Moscow home en route to the centerpiece demonstration in the capital city.

Navalny’s wife, Yulia, said on his Twitter feed that he was arrested about a half-hour before the demonstration was to begin. There was no immediate statement from police.

Although city authorities had agreed to a location for the Moscow protest, Navalny called for it to be moved to Tverskaya Street, one of Moscow’s main thoroughfares. He said contractors hired to build a stage at the agreed-upon venue could not do their work after apparently coming under official pressure.

READ MORE: Dozens arrested in Russia during protests over anti-corruption leader’s arrest

Tverskaya, known in Soviet times as Gorky Street, was closed off to traffic on Monday for an extensive commemoration of the national holiday Russia Day, including people dressed in historical Russian costumes.

After the change, Moscow police warned that “any provocative actions from the protesters’ side will be considered a threat to public order and will be immediately suppressed.”

A regional security official, Vladimir Chernikov, told Ekho Moskvy radio that police would not interfere with demonstrators on the street – as long as they did not carry placards or shout slogans.

More than 1,000 protesters were arrested at a similar rally March 26.

The protests in March took place in scores of cities across the country, the largest show of discontent in years and a challenge to President Vladimir Putin’s dominance of the country.

The Kremlin has long sought to cast the opposition as a phenomenon of a privileged, Westernized urban elite out of touch with people in Russia’s far-flung regions. But Monday’s protests could demonstrate that it has significant support throughout the vast country.

READ MORE: Putin critic Alexei Navalny splashed with green liquid in Siberia

Navalny’s website reported Monday that protests were held in more than a half-dozen cities in the Far East, including the major Pacific ports of Vladivostok and Khabarovsk and in Siberia’s Barnaul. Photos on the website suggested turnouts of hundreds at the rallies.

Eleven demonstrators were arrested in Vladivostok, according to OVD-Info, a website that monitors political repressions.

Navalny has become the most prominent figure in an opposition that has been troubled by factional disputes. He focuses on corruption issues and has attracted a wide following through savvy use of internet video. His report on alleged corruption connected to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was the focus of the March protests.

Navalny has announced his candidacy for the presidential election in 2018. He was jailed for 15 days after the March protests. In April, he suffered damage to one eye after an attacker doused his face with a green antiseptic liquid.</s>Tens of thousands of protesters held anti-corruption rallies across Russia on Monday in a new show of defiance by an opposition that the Kremlin had once dismissed as ineffectual and marginalized.

More than a thousand were arrested — including opposition leader and protest organizer Alexei Navalny, who was seized outside his Moscow residence while heading to the rally in the city centre and sentenced to 30 days in jail several hours later.

The Moscow protest was the most prominent in a string of more than 100 rallies in cities and towns stretching through all 11 of Russia’s time zones — from the Pacific to the European enclave of Kaliningrad — with many denouncing President Vladimir Putin.

Thousands of angry demonstrators thronged to Tverskaya Street, a main avenue in the capital, chanting “Down with the czar” and singing the Russian national anthem.

The protests coincided with Russia Day, a national holiday that this year brought out historical re-enactors, some of them dressed in medieval costumes. At one point, the Moscow demonstration featured an unlikely scene of about 5,000 protesters rallying next to an enclosure with geese, a medieval catapult and bearded men in homemade tunics and carrying wooden shields.

The re-enactors watched the rally before riot police broke up the crowd and randomly seized the protesters.

Over 800 people were arrested in Moscow, while in St. Petersburg, about 500 were forced into police buses at an unsanctioned rally that drew up to 10,000 people. Navalny was taken to court Monday evening and sentenced to 30 days in jail shortly after midnight for repeated violations of the law on public gatherings.

“The scope of the rallies was amazing, and so many people came out,” Navalny told reporters shortly before he was sentenced, point to protest rallies held in towns which have not seen any public show of discontent for decades.

In his trademark humour, Navalny lamented on Twitter shortly before he was led out of the courtroom that he would have to skip a Depeche Mode concert while he is in jail.

The demonstrators appeared to skew predominantly younger — those who were born or grew up during Putin’s 17 years in power. Similar crowds turned out on March 26, rattling officials who had perceived the younger generation as largely apolitical.

Three 16-year-old girls brought sheets of paper to the Moscow protest and sat on the pavement to write the articles of the Russian Constitution on them; a nearby group of teenagers climbed atop of a tent with posters saying, “Corruption kills the future.” Other protesters scaled a scaffold and hung a sign saying, “Only revolution will defeat corruption.”

School and university staff who reportedly reprimanded their students for attending the March protests warned them against going to Monday’s rally.

Ivan Sukhoruchenkov, 19, attended anyway with four university classmates to protest what he described as “stagnation of the political system.”

“Change is always good,” Sukhoruchenkov said, adding that he and his friends were concerned about corruption — Navalny’s rallying cry — that “manifests itself in all areas: from traffic police to university professors.”

Navalny had called the anti-corruption demonstrations, and they drew crowds of several dozen to the 10,000 in St. Petersburg. Some of the rallies were sanctioned by authorities and peaceful, but police cracked down brutally on others.

Although it was not immediately clear if Monday’s protests were larger than those in March, they underlined the deep dismay with the government. Putin is expected to seek another term in 2018, and Navalny has already announced his intentions to run.

Moscow officials had agreed to allow Navalny’s rally, but late Sunday, he said official interference had prevented contractors from erecting a stage at the agreed-upon venue and instead urged demonstrators to gather on Tverskaya Street, which was closed to traffic for the Russia Day festivities.

Most of the Moscow protesters appeared to be under 30, although there was a sizeable number of middle-aged people and couples with children.

With opposition sentiment strong or even growing, authorities appear to be seeking a strategy to undermine the opposition without provoking more animosity.

Authorities allowed the unsanctioned rally to proceed, although riot police cut the crowd in half and began pushing the lines while grabbing some people from the crowd. Some of the arrests were violent with police using batons and dragging people along the street.

In Washington, White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters the United States “strongly condemns the detention of hundreds of peaceful protesters” which he described as an “affront to core democratic values.” Spicer called on the Russian government to immediately release all peaceful protesters.

Navalny rose to prominence for detailed open-source investigations of government corruption. That was a key issue Monday for protesters, particularly his report on vast wealth allegedly acquired by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

“We are against the corruption that is costing the future of our young people,” said Moscow protester Maria Badyrova, a 33-year-old finance specialists who came to the rally with a Russian flag.

Alexei Borsenko, a Vladivostok demonstrator who eluded a police attempt to detain him, cited Iceland’s prime minister stepping down in the fallout from the “Panama Papers” scandal, while “our prime minister is caught on such big corruption cases and he doesn’t go anywhere.”

“This is very strange,” Borsenko added. “It’s a dead end for the country’s development.”

The popular anger has spread beyond Medvedev, with many demonstrators chanting “Putin is a thief” within earshot of the City Hall that later dismissed the protests as an “overt provocation.”</s>MOSCOW (AP) — Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny arrested on way to protest, wife says.</s>MOSCOW Baton-wielding riot police broke up anti-corruption protests and detained hundreds of demonstrators in Moscow and other Russian cities on Monday soon after arresting opposition leader Alexei Navalny.The protests, called by Navalny, a strong critic of Russian President Vladmir Putin, drew thousands of people and were some of the biggest in Russia since 2012. "Russia without Putin" and "Russia will be free" chanted the demonstrators, including many young people, who crowded into central Moscow on a public holiday. Navalny, who is mounting a long-shot bid to unseat Putin in an election next year, had called for mass protests in Moscow and other cities against official corruption.The Kremlin has dismissed Navalny's graft allegations, accusing him of irresponsibly trying to whip up unrest.The scale of Monday's protests in Moscow and smaller ones in St. Petersburg and scores of other cities suggests Navalny has maintained his campaign's momentum despite more than 1,000 people being arrested after the last such protest in March.That is likely to embolden him to call for more protests and keep Putin, who is expected to run for and win re-election next year, under rare domestic pressure."Neither mass detentions nor criminal cases after March 26 (the last protest) worked," wrote Lyubov Sobol, a Navalny ally, on social media. "People are not afraid." The OVD-Info monitoring group, a non-profit organisation said preliminary figures showed 730 people had been detained in Moscow. The Interior Ministry said 500 people were detained in St Petersburg.Navalny's wife, Yulia, said her husband had been detained as he tried to leave their home. Reuters witnesses saw a police car leaving his apartment compound at high speed, followed a few minutes later by a minibus carrying about 10 policemen.

Electricity in his office was cut at around the same time as he was detained, briefly bringing down a live feed of the protests, Navalny's spokeswoman said.Navalny was accused of violating the law on organising public meetings and of disobeying a police officer, police said.Authorities in Moscow said Monday's protest was illegal and drafted in riot police who fired pepper spray and used batons to break it up, detaining people and bundling them onto buses.Roman, a 19-year-old student, said Navalny's campaign against official corruption had struck a chord."I'm sick of the Putin system," he said. "It's been unchanged for the last 17 years. There is so much evidence that our officials are stealing with impunity."

Dima, an 18-year-old florist, said he wanted Prime Minister Medvedev to return what he said were the politician's ill-gotten gains. Medvedev, a close Putin ally, flatly denies wrongdoing."I'm not afraid if I get detained," Dima said.The Interior Ministry said the turnout at the Moscow protest was about 4,500 -- significantly fewer than the numbers estimated by Reuters reporters, who put the turnout in the low tens of thousands. CHANGES

 State media ignored the demonstrations, broadcasting Soviet-style coverage of Putin handing out state awards instead.

Navalny brought thousands onto the streets across Russia in March, the largest such protests since a wave of anti-Kremlin demonstrations in 2012. Navalny was fined and jailed for 15 days for his role in those protests.Moscow authorities had initially authorised a venue for Monday's protest away from the city centre. But Navalny switched it to Tverskaya Street, Moscow's main avenue near the Kremlin. The General Prosecutor's Office had warned that a protest there would be illegal.The area of Tsverskaya Street near where Navalny's supporters congregated was hosting an officially-organised festival, with actors re-enacting periods of Russian history.Video footage showed a protester clambering onto a mock-up of a wartime sandbag fortification holding a poster calling Putin a liar, before being pulled to the ground by a cast member dressed as a World War Two Soviet soldier. For now, polls suggest Navalny has scant chance of unseating Putin, who enjoys high ratings. It is unclear too if the Kremlin will even let Navalny run for the presidency. But the 41-year-old lawyer turned political street campaigner hopes anger over corruption may boost his support. A video he made accusing Medvedev of living far beyond his means has garnered over 22 million online views to date.Navalny, who had a green liquid thrown in his face in April, robbing him of some of his sight, said hundreds of people had also attended demonstrations in Russia's Far East on Monday morning. "I want changes," wrote Navalny in a blog post last week. "I want to live in a modern democratic state and I want our taxes to be converted into roads, schools and hospitals, not into yachts, palaces and vineyards." (Additional reporting by Christian Lowe, Jack Stubbs, Maria Tsvetkova, Dmitry Solovyov, Gleb Stolyarov, and Anton Zverev in Moscow and Natasha Shurmina in Ekaterinburg; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Richard Balmforth and Angus MacSwan)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.</s>Tens of thousands of protesters held anti-corruption rallies across Russia today in a new show of defiance by an opposition that the Kremlin had once dismissed as ineffectual and marginalised.

Nearly 1000 thousand were arrested — including opposition leader and protest organiser Alexei Navalny, who was seized outside his Moscow residence while heading to the rally in the city centre and sentenced to 30 days in jail several hours later.

The Moscow protest was the most prominent in a string of more than 100 rallies in cities and towns stretching through all 11 of Russia's time zones — from the Pacific to the European enclave of Kaliningrad — with many denouncing President Vladimir Putin.

Thousands of angry demonstrators thronged to Tverskaya Street, a main avenue in the capital, chanting "Down with the czar" and singing the Russian national anthem.

The protests coincided with Russia Day, a national holiday that this year brought out historical re-enactors, some of them dressed in medieval costumes.

More than 800 people were arrested in Moscow, while in St Petersburg, about 500 were forced into police buses at an unsanctioned rally that drew up to 10,000 people.

Although it was not immediately clear if today's protests were larger than those in March, they underlined the deep dismay with the government.

Putin is expected to seek another term in 2018, and Navalny has already announced his intentions to run.
Hundreds of people are detained at anti-corruption protest rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg and many other towns, including opposition leader Alexei Navalny.