Protests Swell Across Russia Calling For The Release Of Kremlin Critic Alexei Navalny

(Oh yeah, I forgot to post that after Alexei was released from hospital in Germany he immediately returned to Russia and was immediately arrested.)

Tens of thousands of Russians took to the streets...from the port city of Vladivostok in the east to the capital of Moscow seven time zones away in the west...in open defiance of warnings from Russian authorities that the demonstrations have been deemed illegal.

 In Moscow, protesters gathered in Pushkin Square for what appeared to be the largest of the day's protests. 

In all...protests were planned across 90 cities, including the Siberian city of Yakutsk, where temperatures plunged to minus 60 Fahrenheit.

Police and protesters clashed in multiple cities. By 10:00 p.m. Moscow time, more than 2,600 demonstrators across the country had been detained, according to OVD-Info, an activist group that monitors arrests at protests. The group said it had never tracked so many arrests.

In a statement, the [BIDEN 😄] State Department condemned the Russian government for its use of "harsh tactics against protesters and journalists," and called on Moscow to release all those who had been detained "for exercising their universal rights," including Navalny.

"Continued efforts to suppress Russians' rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression, the arrest of opposition figure Aleksey Navalny, and the crackdown on protests that followed are troubling indications of further restrictions on civil society and fundamental freedoms," said spokesperson Ned Price. "The United States will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies and partners in defense of human rights – whether in Russia or wherever they come under threat," said Price.

(NPR)