MOSCOW �� Thousands of people gathered in Moscow and other major Russian cities Sunday, heeding a call by opposition leader Alexei Navalny to protest official corruption in what appeared to be some of the largest anti-government demonstrations in the past five years.
Police detained scores of protesters in Moscow, including Navalny, who was stopped shortly after arriving on Tverskaya Street in the capital's downtown, his spokeswoman said in Twitter post. Navalny, who is campaigning for the presidency in next year's election despite doubts about whether he will be permitted to run, called the protests after releasing a film showing lavish estates that were said to belong to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. The government has denied that.
Protesters defied officials who refused to authorize the rallies. News agencies reported detentions of participants in Vladivostok, and in cities in Siberia and central Russia, where organizers reported turnout in the hundreds and low thousands.
While there were no independent estimates of overall turnout, Sunday's rallies appeared to be the largest since 2012, when tens of thousands turned out against the Kremlin over allegations of widespread vote fraud. Web cameras in Moscow showed crowds with thousands of people gathering at several of central squares along Tverskaya Street Sunday. Because authorities refused a permit for the protest, organizers called on participants simply to show up and walk.
Police, whom opposition groups accuse of understating such counts, put the turnout in Moscow at about 8,000. Photos from the scene suggested that the number was much larger.
State media, which have typically ignored such events in recent years, covered some of Sunday's demonstrations. A senior lawmaker from the ruling United Russia party seemed sympathetic to the protests. "These demonstrations probably raise a lot of justified criticisms and concerns," Frants Klintsevich told the Ekho Moskvy radio station.
