Up to 50,000 people turned out in Moscow on Saturday for a protest against disputed polls that have sparked a rare national show of defiance against Vladimir Putin’s 12-year rule. Hundreds of security trucks blocked off central squares while helicopters patrolled the skies as Moscow authorities deployed more than 50,000 riot police and troops on the biggest day of protest to hit Russia since the turbulent 1990s.
Protesters braved a whipping snow storm to snake their way through tight police cordons and across the Moscow River to a secluded square not far from the Kremlin, assigned by the authorities for the “For Fair Elections” protest. “The current regime does not know how to behave with dignity,” former cabinet member turned Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov said as the crowd gathered for the biggest Moscow opposition rally of the Putin era.
