In a wave of rare public protests, thousands of Russians took to the streets Saturday to condemn the March election that saw Russian leader Vladimir Putin re-elected as president.

Putin, who has been Russia’s leader for 18 years, will be inaugurated Monday to begin a new six-year term. The Russian strongman’s critics have said the election he won was rigged.

Protests took place all across Russia, including St. Petersburg, not far from Russia’s western border, and Yakutsk, far to the northeastern part of the vast nation. The group OVD-Info said roughly 1,600 people were arrested in 20 cities overall.

The size of the protests was in dispute. The BBC reported that Moscow police said about 1,500 people marched in Russia’s capital. However, Reuters said its reporters at the scene estimated there were several thousand people present.

Protest organizer Alexei Navalny was among those arrested in Moscow, where protesters chanted, “Putin is a thief!” and “Russia will be free!”

Before being taken away, Navalny addressed the crowd.

“They said that this city belongs to Putin. Is that right?” Navalny asked. “Do you need a tsar?”

Prior to the marches, Navalny sought to hold protests in 90 cities.

“If you think that he is not our tsar, take to the streets of your cities,” he said in a pre-protest statement, according to Sky News. “We will force the authorities, made up of swindlers and thieves, to reckon with the millions of citizens who did not vote for Putin.”

He said Russians who did not support Putin need to be heard.

“They are different people, with different views, but as a whole, they have thoughts and ideas about Russia’s future that differ from that of Putin,” Navalny said. “Their opinions must be heard because they are the citizens of Russia too. Right now, they … we … are being ignored,” he said in a video posted to YouTube.

RELATED: Russia: It Isn’t Strange Journalist Died Falling From Balcony, Left No Suicide Note

Protesters said their nation needed new leadership.

“I think that Putin isn’t worthy of leading this country. He has been doing it for 18 years and has done nothing good for it,” Moscow demonstrator Dmitry Nikitenko told Fox News. “He should leave for good.”

“We’ve come out here to demonstrate against the puppet elections,” said Pavel Kuznetsov, 72, who joined a Moscow protest sporting a t-shirt that showed Putin wearing a crown with a red line through it, the Australian Broadcasting Company reported.

A woman who told NBC her name was Ekaterina, but did not want her last name used, explained why Russians are protesting.

“There is a big chunk of people who don’t agree with what’s happening in the country, who didn’t go out to vote, and who don’t consider the elections legitimate,” said the 36-year-old artist.

Putin has claimed that Navalny is working with the United States to sow discord in Russia.

What do you think? Scroll down to comment below.</s>MOSCOW -- Thousands of people on Saturday marked President Vladimir Putin's coming fourth inauguration with street protests across Russia against his rule. Police responded by arresting nearly 1,600 of them, according to a monitoring group.

Police dragged the organizer, 41-year-old opposition leader Alexei Navalny, out of the Moscow rally by his arms and ankles minutes after he arrived. Protesters packed Pushkin Square in the center of the city nevertheless, and they were met by columns of riot police who charged into the crowd to try to disperse it.

OVD-Info, an organization that monitors political repression, said late Saturday that 1,599 people had been detained at demonstrations in 26 Russian cities. It said 702 were arrested in Moscow alone, and another 232 in St. Petersburg.

"They're even worse than bandits -- the people in power have made this country unfit for living," said Natalia Znaminskaya, 58, editor of a regional journal in the Moscow suburbs. "No one can survive with these salaries, and in this environment."

Navalny's team organized 90 protests across the country, dubbing them "He is not our czar," a reference to Putin, who was first elected president in 2000 and is already Russia's longest-serving leader since Joseph Stalin.

Images from cities as far-flung as Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea, Nizhny Novgorod on the Volga River, Krasnoyarsk in Siberia and Khabarovsk in the Far East showed hundreds or thousands of protesters. They chanted "Russia without Putin," "Putin is a thief" and "Out with the czar!" In St. Petersburg, hundreds walked down Nevsky Prospekt, the city's central thoroughfare.

In Russia, protests must receive the green light from authorities to go ahead, and Saturday's rallies were no exception. Authorities in many places, including Moscow, denied permits. In the Russian capital, the whine of police sirens and the chanting crowds clashed with a nearby outdoor international music festival organized by the city, where performers sang a cappella to a small audience.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Heather Nauert criticized the actions of the Russian police.

"The United States condemns #Russia's detention of hundreds of peaceful protesters and calls for their immediate release. Leaders who are secure in their own legitimacy don't arrest their peaceful opponents for protesting," she tweeted.

The protests captured the duality of the political mood in Russia ahead of Putin's inauguration Monday to a fourth term. Saturday's rallies were smaller than the ones that preceded Putin's previous inauguration, in 2012, when some 100,000 turned out in Moscow alone in a wave of winter and spring protests. But the protests also showed the determination of Navalny's sizable number of core supporters, many of them young, who are still willing to risk detention and police violence to make their voices heard.

"We don't have the hope that we'll make Russia wonderful and prosperous overnight," Leonid Volkov, Navalny's chief of staff, said on the Navalny team's live YouTube broadcast encouraging people to join the protests. "The sum of our efforts must match the efforts of those evil people, and then, gradually, we will be able to bend the situation in our direction."

"I'm not too sure what the protesters want, but, economically, we're fine," said a 37-year-old business analyst who would only give her first name, Olga, who happened upon the Moscow rally on her regular weekend walk. "Since Crimea reunited with Russia, and we were hit with sanctions, we've proven that we're able to stand on our own two feet."

Navalny was to be charged with disobeying police, an offense that carries a sentence of up to 15 days, news reports said, though when he would face a judge was not immediately clear. Navalny has served several multi-week stretches in jail on similar charges. He was barred from running for president against Putin earlier this year and has no clear avenue for gaining elected office.

Still, despite having no access through state TV, he has built a following by producing viral videos spotlighting corruption among Russia's ruling elite and describes street protests as the only way to put pressure on the Kremlin. He has built up a network of offices across the country and has staged several nationwide protests over the past year.

His arrest is the latest act of government repression of dissent -- that, along with perceived corruption and a stagnant and sanctions-hit economy, is helping to fuel the protests. Thousands protested in Moscow Monday against the government's effort to block access to the Telegram messaging app.

Fatigue with Putin is another factor motivating the opposition. His new presidential term will keep him in office until 2024, and Moscow is rife with speculation that the 65-year-old Putin will seek to remain in power for as long as he lives.

Information for this article was contributed by Amie Ferris-Rotman and Anton Troianovski of The Washington Post; and by Jim Heintz of The Associated Press.</s>In a wave of rare public protests, thousands of Russians took to the streets Saturday to condemn the March election that saw Russian leader Vladimir Putin re-elected as president.

Putin, who has been Russia’s leader for 18 years, will be inaugurated Monday to begin a new six-year term. The Russian strongman’s critics have said the election he won was rigged.

Protests took place all across Russia, including St. Petersburg, not far from Russia’s western border, and Yakutsk, far to the northeastern part of the vast nation. The group OVD-Info said roughly 1,600 people were arrested in 20 cities overall.

The size of the protests was in dispute. The BBC reported that Moscow police said about 1,500 people marched in Russia’s capital. However, Reuters said its reporters at the scene estimated there were several thousand people present.

Protest organizer Alexei Navalny was among those arrested in Moscow, where protesters chanted, “Putin is a thief!” and “Russia will be free!”

Before being taken away, Navalny addressed the crowd.

“They said that this city belongs to Putin. Is that right?” Navalny asked. “Do you need a tsar?”

Prior to the marches, Navalny sought to hold protests in 90 cities.

“If you think that he is not our tsar, take to the streets of your cities,” he said in a pre-protest statement, according to Sky News. “We will force the authorities, made up of swindlers and thieves, to reckon with the millions of citizens who did not vote for Putin.”

He said Russians who did not support Putin need to be heard.

“They are different people, with different views, but as a whole, they have thoughts and ideas about Russia’s future that differ from that of Putin,” Navalny said. “Their opinions must be heard because they are the citizens of Russia too. Right now, they … we … are being ignored,” he said in a video posted to YouTube.

RELATED: Russia: It Isn’t Strange Journalist Died Falling From Balcony, Left No Suicide Note

Protesters said their nation needed new leadership.

“I think that Putin isn’t worthy of leading this country. He has been doing it for 18 years and has done nothing good for it,” Moscow demonstrator Dmitry Nikitenko told Fox News. “He should leave for good.”

“We’ve come out here to demonstrate against the puppet elections,” said Pavel Kuznetsov, 72, who joined a Moscow protest sporting a t-shirt that showed Putin wearing a crown with a red line through it, the Australian Broadcasting Company reported.

A woman who told NBC her name was Ekaterina, but did not want her last name used, explained why Russians are protesting.

“There is a big chunk of people who don’t agree with what’s happening in the country, who didn’t go out to vote, and who don’t consider the elections legitimate,” said the 36-year-old artist.

Putin has claimed that Navalny is working with the United States to sow discord in Russia.

What do you think? Scroll down to comment below.</s>MOSCOW >> Russians angered by the impending inauguration of Vladimir Putin to a new term as president protested Saturday in scores of cities across the country — and police responded by reportedly arresting more than 1,600 of them.

Among those arrested was protest organizer Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption campaigner who is Putin’s most prominent foe.

Police seized Navalny by the arms and legs and carried the thrashing activist from Moscow’s Pushkin Square, where thousands were gathered for an unauthorized protest.

Police also used batons against protesters who chanted “Putin is a thief!” and “Russia will be free!”

Demonstrations under the slogan “He is not our czar” took place throughout the country, from Yakutsk in the far northeast to St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad on the fringes of Europe.

The protests demonstrated that Navalny’s opposition, although considered beleaguered by Russian officials and largely ignored by state-controlled television, has sizeable support in much of the country.

“I think that Putin isn’t worthy of leading this country. He has been doing it for 18 years and has done nothing good for it,” said Moscow demonstrator Dmitry Nikitenko. “He should leave for good.”

OVD-Info, an organization that monitors political repression, said late Saturday that at least 1,607 people had been detained at demonstrations in 20 Russian cities. It said 704 were arrested in Moscow alone, and another 229 in St. Petersburg.

Moscow police said about 300 people were detained in the capital, state news agencies said, and there was no official countrywide tally.

“Let my son go!” Iraida Nikolaeva screamed, running after police in Moscow when they detained her son. “He did not do anything! Are you a human or not? Do you live in Russia or not?”

Navalny was to be charged with disobeying police, an offense that carries a sentence of up to 15 days, news reports said, though when he would face a judge was not immediately clear. Navalny has served several multi-week stretches in jail on similar charges.

In St. Petersburg, police blocked off a stretch of Nevsky Prospekt as a crowd of about 1,000 marched along the renowned avenue. Video showed some demonstrators being detained.

Putin is to be inaugurated for a new six-year term on Monday after winning re-election in March with 77 percent of the vote. Navalny had hoped to challenge him on the ballot but was blocked because of a felony conviction in a case that supporters regard as falsified in order to marginalize him.

Navalny has called nationwide demonstrations several times in the past year, and their turnout has rattled the Kremlin.

Saturday’s protests attracted crowds of hundreds in cities that are far remote from Moscow, challenging authorities’ contention that Navalny and other opposition figures appeal only to a small, largely urban elite.</s>US President Donald Trump has congratulated Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on his inauguration for another six-year term, the White House said. “The president congratulates him and looks forward to a time when we can hopefully have a good relationship with Russia. However, the United States believes that everyone has a right to be heard and assemble peacefully,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters at her daily news conference yesterday. She reiterated that Democrats were using the Russia investigation as an excuse for losing the 2016 election.

“I think he thinks that the idea that this narrative continues to be driven. The fact that, a year-and-a-half later, after spending most all of your time, every single day, looking into this and still finding nothing, the fact that we’re still talking about it and has the potential to impact the 2018 election,” Sanders said.

“The point he’s making is how ridiculous it is that we’re still having this conversation and the depths to which this research has gone on and investigation has been conducted and still produced nothing,” she added.</s>In a wave of rare public protests, thousands of Russians took to the streets Saturday to condemn the March election that saw Russian leader Vladimir Putin re-elected as president.

Putin, who has been Russia’s leader for 18 years, will be inaugurated Monday to begin a new six-year term. The Russian strongman’s critics have said the election he won was rigged.

Protests took place all across Russia, including St. Petersburg, not far from Russia’s western border, and Yakutsk, far to the northeastern part of the vast nation. The group OVD-Info said roughly 1,600 people were arrested in 20 cities overall.

The size of the protests was in dispute. The BBC reported that Moscow police said about 1,500 people marched in Russia’s capital. However, Reuters said its reporters at the scene estimated there were several thousand people present.

Protest organizer Alexei Navalny was among those arrested in Moscow, where protesters chanted, “Putin is a thief!” and “Russia will be free!”

Before being taken away, Navalny addressed the crowd.

“They said that this city belongs to Putin. Is that right?” Navalny asked. “Do you need a tsar?”

Prior to the marches, Navalny sought to hold protests in 90 cities.

“If you think that he is not our tsar, take to the streets of your cities,” he said in a pre-protest statement, according to Sky News. “We will force the authorities, made up of swindlers and thieves, to reckon with the millions of citizens who did not vote for Putin.”

He said Russians who did not support Putin need to be heard.

“They are different people, with different views, but as a whole, they have thoughts and ideas about Russia’s future that differ from that of Putin,” Navalny said. “Their opinions must be heard because they are the citizens of Russia too. Right now, they … we … are being ignored,” he said in a video posted to YouTube.

RELATED: Russia: It Isn’t Strange Journalist Died Falling From Balcony, Left No Suicide Note

Protesters said their nation needed new leadership.

“I think that Putin isn’t worthy of leading this country. He has been doing it for 18 years and has done nothing good for it,” Moscow demonstrator Dmitry Nikitenko told Fox News. “He should leave for good.”

“We’ve come out here to demonstrate against the puppet elections,” said Pavel Kuznetsov, 72, who joined a Moscow protest sporting a t-shirt that showed Putin wearing a crown with a red line through it, the Australian Broadcasting Company reported.

A woman who told NBC her name was Ekaterina, but did not want her last name used, explained why Russians are protesting.

“There is a big chunk of people who don’t agree with what’s happening in the country, who didn’t go out to vote, and who don’t consider the elections legitimate,” said the 36-year-old artist.

Putin has claimed that Navalny is working with the United States to sow discord in Russia.

What do you think? Scroll down to comment below.</s>MOSCOW — Russians angered by the impending inauguration of Vladimir Putin to a new term as president protested Saturday in scores of cities across the country — and police responded by reportedly arresting nearly 1,600 of them.

Among those arrested was protest organizer Alexei Navalny, the anti-corruption campaigner who is Putin’s most prominent foe. Police seized Navalny by the arms and legs and carried the thrashing activist from Moscow’s Pushkin Square, where thousands were gathered for an unauthorized protest.

Police also used batons against protesters who chanted “Putin is a thief!” and “Russia will be free!”

Demonstrations under the slogan “He is not our czar” took place throughout the country, from Yakutsk in the far northeast to St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad on the fringes of Europe.

The protests demonstrated that Navalny’s opposition, although considered beleaguered by Russian officials and largely ignored by state-controlled television, has sizeable support in much of the country.

“I think that Putin isn’t worthy of leading this country. He has been doing it for 18 years and has done nothing good for it,” said Moscow demonstrator Dmitry Nikitenko. “He should leave for good.”

OVD-Info, an organization that monitors political repression, said late Saturday that 1,599 people had been detained at demonstrations in 26 Russian cities. It said 702 were arrested in Moscow alone, and another 232 in St. Petersburg.

Moscow police said about 300 people were detained in the capital, state news agencies said, and there was no official countrywide tally.

Navalny was to be charged with disobeying police, an offense that carries a sentence of up to 15 days, news reports said, though when he would face a judge was not immediately clear. Navalny has served several multi-week stretches in jail on similar charges.

In St. Petersburg, police blocked off a stretch of Nevsky Prospekt as a crowd of about 1,000 marched along the renowned avenue.</s>Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Vladimir Putin walks to his limousine for his swearing-in ceremony

Vladimir Putin has been sworn in for a fourth term as Russian president and pledged to harness the country's talents to "achieve breakthroughs".

Some 5,000 guests attended the lavish ceremony in an ornate Kremlin hall.

He has been in power for 18 years, as president and prime minister, and opponents have likened his tenure to the reign of a tsar, or emperor.

Russian TV showed Mr Putin, 65, leaving his Kremlin office and walking to the ceremony, down long corridors.

He then took a short ride in a new, Russian-made limousine, called Cortege, in the Kremlin compound. Previously he and his entourage have used foreign luxury cars.

In previous years a bigger motorcade drove the president across Moscow to the ceremony.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Young Russians have grown up entirely under Mr Putin's leadership

German ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, now in charge of a branch of Russian gas giant Gazprom, was in the front row alongside Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill.

Another celebrity friend of Mr Putin, Hollywood star and Russian citizen Steven Seagal, stood near the front row.

"We have revived pride in our fatherland," Mr Putin said. "As head of state I will do all I can to multiply the strength and prosperity of Russia."

"We need breakthroughs in all areas of life. I'm deeply convinced that such a leap forward can only be secured with a free society that accepts all that is new and advanced."

He said that in the past Russia had risen again from setbacks, "like a phoenix".

On Saturday riot police confronted protesters against his rule in Moscow and other Russian cities.

More than 1,000 arrests are said to have been made in 19 cities.

The biggest complaint among Russians surveyed by the Levada Centre, a major sociological research body, was that Mr Putin had failed to reduce the wealth gap (the top complaint for 45% of respondents).

Another big complaint (for 39%) was the failure to refund Russians who lost savings during market reforms.

Mr Putin's most praiseworthy achievement was restoring Russia's world status as a great power (47%), according to the poll. It was conducted last month among 1,600 Russians in 136 towns and cities.

Compared with a similar poll in 2015, there was a doubling of complaints that Mr Putin had failed to raise wages, pensions and benefits.

Why were there protests?

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Police seized opposition leader Alexei Navalny at a rally in Moscow

Nearly half of the reported 1,000 arrests on Saturday were in Moscow.

Mr Putin was re-elected president with more than 76% of the vote, his best ever election performance, but widespread irregularities were reported by some international observers. Allegations of ballot-rigging had dogged previous elections too.

The country's best-known opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, was barred from standing against Mr Putin, on grounds of a conviction for embezzlement which he denies and alleges was politically motivated.

Mr Navalny was arrested briefly as he tried to join Saturday's unauthorised protest rally in Moscow under the slogan "He's not our tsar".

Domestic opponents accuse Mr Putin of undermining democracy in Russia - a policy dubbed "managed democracy" - to keep genuine opposition parties out of parliament and ensure that he and his allies retain power indefinitely.

Could Putin just go on and on?

First elected president in 2000, Mr Putin renewed his four-year term in 2004 before stepping aside in 2008 to serve as prime minister under his protege, Dmitry Medvedev, because by law he could serve only two consecutive terms.

Few doubted who was really in charge and in 2012 Mr Putin returned as president, this time for a term of six years.

When he reaches the end of his fourth term in 2024, he will have been in power for nearly a quarter of a century.

That would still fall short of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's 31 years in power or, indeed, the reigns of some Russian tsars such as Alexander II (26 years) and Nicholas I (30 years).

Spy turned president

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Visiting a shooting gallery at the GRU military intelligence headquarters in Moscow in 2006

1952: Born 7 October in Leningrad (now St Petersburg), Russia's second city, studies law and joins KGB secret police, serving as spy in communist East Germany

1990s: After serving as top aide to mayor of St Petersburg, enters Boris Yeltsin's Kremlin in 1997, where he is made chief of the FSB (the KGB's successor)

1999: Appointed prime minister, becomes acting president upon Yeltsin's resignation

2000: Elected president and serves two four-year terms

2008: Barred from running for a third consecutive term, stuns analysts by returning to post of prime minister while his protege Dmitry Medvedev becomes president

2012: Re-elected president and for term of six years, under new law

2018: Re-elected for fourth term</s>Vladimir Putin has entered the Grand Kremlin Palace for inauguration into 4th term as Russian president

MOSCOW (AP) — Vladimir Putin has entered the Grand Kremlin Palace for inauguration into 4th term as Russian president.</s>Vladimir Putin has been sworn in for his fourth term as president of Russia at a ceremony in the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow.

Video footage released by Russian television showed Mr Putin's distinctive walk along the Great Kremlin Palace's long corridors, thanking supporters as they applauded him.

Mr Putin has been in power in Russia since 1999, whether as prime minister or president, and is Russia's longest-serving leader since Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

After winning a landslide victory in March, Mr Putin, 65, is expected to continue to control Russia until at least 2024, despite protests on Saturday amid a crackdown on encrypted messaging app Telegram.

Supporters see Mr Putin as a father-of-the-nation figure who has restored national pride and expanded Moscow's global power.

He has pledged new economic reforms that would boost living standards across Russia.

The Kremlin has planned a low-key inauguration ceremony that will not include a lavish Kremlin reception in an apparent effort to eschew any bad publicity.

A respectful gun salute was held outside the Kremlin at Mr Putin was sworn in.

The ceremony is being watched across the world as the Russian leader finds himself increasingly at odds with much of the international community.

Russia's annexation of Crimea and Mr Putin's support for Syria's Assad, as well as the use of a chemical weapon it manufactured in an attempted assassination in Salisbury, have resulted in sanctions against the country.

His inauguration follows nationwide rallies and protests which resulted in the arrests of at least 1,200 demonstrators.

Russia's interior ministry said about half of the 1,200 arrests happened in Moscow, but monitoring group OVD-Info put the number at more than 1,600 across 20 cities.

Protest leader Alexei Navalny was arrested in Moscow's Pushkin Square on Saturday, but he later tweeted that he had been released and will face charges of organising an unauthorised meeting and of resisting police.

Mr Putin's inauguration comes ahead of Russia hosting the World Cup 2018 this summer.

In a widely expected win in March, Mr Putin secured more than 76.66% of the vote and a turnout of 67.47%, the Central Election Commission said.

The result came amid allegations of election violations, including ballot-box stuffing and forced voting.

Addressing a crowd near Moscow's Red Square shortly after the count, Mr Putin said his victory was a vote of confidence in his achievements.

"It's very important to maintain this unity," he said.

"We will think about the future of our great Motherland," he said, before leading the crowd in repeated chants of "Russia!"

Asked later if he could seek the presidency again in 2030, Mr Putin replied: "It's ridiculous. Do you think I will sit here until I turn 100?"
Russian President Vladimir Putin is inaugurated at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow for a fourth term as President of Russia following his victory in March's presidential election.