Russian police detain 380 at anti-Putin protest

Russian police detained at least 380 activists across the country on Sunday for holding unauthorised protests against President Vladimir Putin, a monitoring group said.

The demonstrations took place after radical opposition politician Vyacheslav Maltsev appealed on his website for supporters to hold protests across the country, calling for a "people's revolution" to end "Putin's tyranny".

"We know of 380 detained. 13 were detained in Saint Petersburg and 346 in Moscow, who were taken to 19 police stations," said OVD-Info, a rights group that monitors detentions at political protests.

It added that officers from the powerful Investigative Committee, which probes serious crime, was questioning detainees at some police stations.

Moscow police said previously they had detained 263 people "for breaches of public order".

Many of those detained were carrying knives, knuckledusters and pistols that can fire rubber bullets, TASS state news agency reported.

An AFP photographer said police, some in helmets and bullet-proof vests, picked up the protesters one by one in central Moscow close to the Kremlin. Police then detained activists on another central square, TASS reported.

A reporter for popular Echo of Moscow radio station, Andrei Yezhov, wrote on Twitter that he was detained, but he was later released without charge.

The detentions come after police in Moscow on Saturday also detained dozens of people at an authorised nationalist anti-Kremlin march on a public holiday known as the Day of National Unity.

In recent months, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who wants to stand against Putin in polls next year, has also called on his supporters to hold unauthorised protests, resulting in large numbers of arrests.

PTI