Huge anti-government protests erupted in the far east of Russia on Saturday over the arrest of a popular governor who was replaced this week by a Kremlin representative who has never lived in the charged region.
Residents of Khabarovsk, near the Chinese border, took to the streets in droves for the third consecutive Saturday after Governor Sergei Furgal was arrested by federal police and transferred to Moscow on murder charges this month.
These have been some of the biggest anti-government protests in Russia in years, which the Kremlin said this week were being fueled by opposition activists outside Khabarovsk.
Tens of thousands of residents marched through Khabarovsk waving the region’s flag, carrying banners and chanting slogans against President Vladimir Putin, as passing cars honked in support.
“We want our governor released because we believe he was probably illegally detained,” said protester Alina Slepova, 24.
Furgal was removed by federal officials “for their own purposes, not for the good of our region,” he told AFP.
Protesters converged in front of the regional administrative building in Lenin Square shouting “Freedom” and “Putin’s resignation.”
Masked police allowed the protests to continue despite a ban on public gatherings as part of measures to contain the coronavirus pandemic.
The protests that initially erupted in response to Furgal’s arrest for the murders that occurred 15 years ago are increasingly becoming an outlet to vent frustration with the Kremlin.
“The center is absorbing resources from the far east,” said protester Alexander Gogolev, 45, who expressed anger that the region receives “nothing in return.”
Estimates of participation varied greatly, and Khabarovsk officials said 6,500 people attended. Meanwhile, local media said the number was closer to between 15,000 and 20,000.
Journalists reporting from the city, seven time zones east of Moscow, said Saturday’s demonstration was the largest since the protests began this month.
Moscow police detained at least 10 people who gathered in Pushkin Square in support of protesters in Khabarovsk, the monitors said, and local media reported smaller protests in other eastern Russian cities, including Vladivostok and Yuzhno- Sakhalinsk.
On Monday, Putin officially fired Furgal, 50, and named a legislator from the same nationalist LDPR party, Mikhail Degtyarev, as his acting substitute.
The move was greeted with anger by Khabarovsk residents who said the 39-year-old stranger lacked experience and had no connection to the region.
In a video posted to Instagram this week, Degtyarev dismissed the calls for him to resign, saying the mass protests did not reflect wider public opinion.
Before Friday’s protests, he suggested that foreign citizens had flown from Moscow to Khabarovsk to help organize the protests.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the allegations of foreign interference, but said the protests were a “nutrient … for rioters” and “pseudo-opposition” activists.
Opposition leader and former presidential candidate Alexei Navalny has backed the protesters and this week said the protests could only win concessions “with the support of the entire country.”
Furgal’s arrest before a trial in September sparked a protest by his nationalist LDPR party whose firebrand leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky this week promised to secure a presidential pardon if convicted of the charges.
The Russian Investigative Committee, which investigates major crimes, said Furgal was accused of ordering the murders and assassination attempts of several businessmen in 2004 and 2005.
Critics say the case is politically motivated after Furgal was elected with a large majority in 2018 in a shameful defeat for a Putin-backed ruling party candidate.
Meanwhile, 17 members of Russia’s “United Democrats” movement, which campaigns for meaningful elections, were arrested in the western region of Tatarstan on Saturday for their alleged involvement in “terrorism,” the group said.
Launched in 2018, the United Democrats were formed by a group of independent candidates in the municipal elections, fighting for a fair fight at the ballot box.
