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The Kremlin broke its silence on the largest Russian opposition protest in years, claiming that the size of the demonstrations against Vladimir Putin was exaggerated and accusing the United States of meddling in Russia’s internal affairs.
A record 3,500 people were arrested when police attempted to shut down unauthorized rallies in 10 time zones across the country in support of Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader who was jailed upon returning to Russia after being treated for an alleged poisoning of the federal security service.
Clashes broke out in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Vladivostok and other cities as protesters threw snowballs and exchanged blows with riot police wearing bulletproof vests and helmets. Dozens of people were injured.
The level of violence was unusual for protests in Russia, where heavily armored policemen generally methodically warm up protesters without resorting to open fighting in the streets. Videos on Saturday showed police beating protesters with batons, and one showed an officer kicking a protester in the stomach and knocking her to the ground. She was hospitalized in critical condition. The officer has not been identified.
Videos have also emerged of protesters attacking the police and several dozen people breaking the glass of a car that appeared to belong to the FSB, Russia’s national intelligence service. The state news agency RIA Novosti reported that the driver of the car had suffered a serious eye injury, but this has not been confirmed.
Russian investigators on Sunday were said to be questioning underage protesters as part of a criminal investigation. Navalny’s support base has grown younger in recent years due to his use of social media and his YouTube-posted research on the wealth of the Kremlin’s elite. Authorities have demanded that social media companies like TikTok remove the posts of underage users who support the protests.
“I have the clear impression that the authorities want to initiate a criminal case to entice minors to participate in unauthorized protests,” Marina Litvinovich, a member of a government human rights monitoring body, told TV Rain. “To do this, they need children to witness.”
The United States condemned the violence against protesters, in a marked departure from its attitude toward Russia during the Trump administration. “The United States will stand shoulder to shoulder with our allies and partners in defending human rights, whether in Russia or wherever they are threatened,” said Ned Price, a spokesman for the State Department.
Those comments sparked anger in Moscow. Kremlin press secretary Dmitri Peskov said: “We are not ready for diktat, we are not ready for rudeness and we are not ready for any red line crossing.”
Peskov said on state television that Putin would be ready to talk to the Biden administration despite their disagreements, but the two countries were closer to “enemies” than “partners” at this time.
During the interview, he also said that the protests would help those who wanted to destabilize Russia, and that far fewer people supported the protests than those who supported Putin.
“A lot of people are going to say that a lot of people attended this illegal demonstration,” Peskov said. “No. Few people came out, but many people voted for Putin. And many people voted for a constitutional reform” that will allow Putin to run for president until 2036, he continued. “If you compare the numbers, you will see how few people there were.”
Estimates of crowd size in Moscow have varied by an order of magnitude: the police estimated 4,000 protesters while the Reuters news agency estimated 40,000.
Peskov’s comments appeared to confirm what many analysts had predicted: that the Kremlin will remain defiant despite street protests and pressure from outside to release Navalny. A parole board could enforce a three-and-a-half-year sentence against the opposition leader and send him to a penal colony before the end of the month.
Peskov accused the US embassy of interfering in Russian affairs by commenting on the protests, following accusations by the Russian Foreign Ministry that the US embassy had backed the protests by posting protest routes.
“This is a professionally prepared provocation, encouraged by the embassies of Western countries, including the US embassy in Moscow,” the Russian embassy in the UK tweeted on Sunday.
Navalny supporters have pledged to hold opposition protests next week, raising the possibility that Russia will see weekly protests such as in neighboring Belarus, where embattled President Alexander Lukashenko has been accused of using torture to maintain control.
The opposition ridiculed Peskov’s claims that the crowds at the protests were small. “Peskov: Even more people should be at the meeting next week!” joked Leonid Volkov, one of the few Navalny aides who has not been arrested, because he is abroad. “We will count everyone who does not come as if they were from Putin!”
