Moscow braces for biggest anti-Putin rally
MOSCOW — Tens of thousands of Russians prepared Friday to hold their biggest protest yet over a contested election that has sent Moscow's relations with Washington spiraling to a three-year low.
Saturday's rally in Moscow — sanctioned by the police after days of talks with the opposition — is expected to draw around 30,000 people to a square across the river from the Kremlin following last weekend's legislative polls.
But the opposition is also organizing rallies in at least 14 other major cities in a rare outpouring of mistrust in a system put in place by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin when he first became president in 2000.
Sunday's vote was narrowly won by Putin's ruling party but accompanied by a flood of video footage shot by ordinary Russians and posted on the Internet appearing to show ballot stuffing and other widespread manipulation.
The protests that followed have posed a surprise challenge to Putin and saw the Russian strongman on Thursday launch a lacerating attack on US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her expressions of concern.
Putin accused Clinton of deliberately sending a signal to the opposition to protest and the State Department of paying Russian groups to find fault with the elections.
He said Washington's criticism "had set the tone for some people inside the country and given a signal."
"They heard the signal and with the support of the US State Department started active work," Putin said in his first comments on the rallies.
US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said firmly that "nothing could be further from the truth."
Putin also vowed to toughen laws against foreign political influence while the popular Russian social networking site Vkontakte.ru revealed that the FSB security service had requested details about registered opposition groups.
The exchange between Putin and Clinton sets a tense tone to the Russian strongman's expected return to the Kremlin next year in a presidential poll that could see the former intelligence agent stay in power through 2024.
Washington had attempted to "reset" ties with Putin's handpicked successor Dmitry Medvedev after a brief 2008 war between Russia and US ally Georgia caused diplomatic tensions to rise to Soviet-era proportions.
"For the first time since the 'reset', relations between Moscow and Washington... are starting to fray," the Vedomosti business daily remarked.
City authorities have allowed up to 30,000 people to gather on a square facing the Kremlin across the Moscow River — a location that helps the police halt any attempt by the opposition to march on government buildings.
But some 35,000 people have already pledged on a Facebook page to attend the 2:00 pm (1000 GMT) meeting in what promises to become the biggest opposition gathering of the Putin era.
Others vowed to show up at a site closer to the Kremlin in what threatens to blow up into a confrontation with some of the 52,000 police and riot troops that have been deployed on the streets of Moscow as a precaution.
Around 1,600 people have already been arrested in three days of protests in Moscow and Putin's native city of Saint Petersburg — a cultural capital with a tradition of opposition thought going back to pre-Soviet times.
Yet the Kremlin is now facing the threat of demonstrations spreading to the Russian regions after anti-Kremlin groups also organized events for cities stretching from Nizhny Novgorod on the Volga River to Krasnoyarsk in Siberia.
The event in the industrial Ural Mountains city of Chelyabinsk has the largest number of Facebook attendance promises outside of Moscow and Saint Petersburg with more than 4,500 promising to show up.
The Russian authorities may be "underestimating the changes occurring to the mass consciousness of society," the widely read Kommersant broadsheet said.
"And it is quite possible that this may end in a catastrophe not only for the authorities but also for society." — Agence France-Presse
Saturday's rally in Moscow — sanctioned by the police after days of talks with the opposition — is expected to draw around 30,000 people to a square across the river from the Kremlin following last weekend's legislative polls.
But the opposition is also organizing rallies in at least 14 other major cities in a rare outpouring of mistrust in a system put in place by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin when he first became president in 2000.
Sunday's vote was narrowly won by Putin's ruling party but accompanied by a flood of video footage shot by ordinary Russians and posted on the Internet appearing to show ballot stuffing and other widespread manipulation.
The protests that followed have posed a surprise challenge to Putin and saw the Russian strongman on Thursday launch a lacerating attack on US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her expressions of concern.
Putin accused Clinton of deliberately sending a signal to the opposition to protest and the State Department of paying Russian groups to find fault with the elections.
He said Washington's criticism "had set the tone for some people inside the country and given a signal."
"They heard the signal and with the support of the US State Department started active work," Putin said in his first comments on the rallies.
US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said firmly that "nothing could be further from the truth."
Putin also vowed to toughen laws against foreign political influence while the popular Russian social networking site Vkontakte.ru revealed that the FSB security service had requested details about registered opposition groups.
The exchange between Putin and Clinton sets a tense tone to the Russian strongman's expected return to the Kremlin next year in a presidential poll that could see the former intelligence agent stay in power through 2024.
Washington had attempted to "reset" ties with Putin's handpicked successor Dmitry Medvedev after a brief 2008 war between Russia and US ally Georgia caused diplomatic tensions to rise to Soviet-era proportions.
"For the first time since the 'reset', relations between Moscow and Washington... are starting to fray," the Vedomosti business daily remarked.
City authorities have allowed up to 30,000 people to gather on a square facing the Kremlin across the Moscow River — a location that helps the police halt any attempt by the opposition to march on government buildings.
But some 35,000 people have already pledged on a Facebook page to attend the 2:00 pm (1000 GMT) meeting in what promises to become the biggest opposition gathering of the Putin era.
Others vowed to show up at a site closer to the Kremlin in what threatens to blow up into a confrontation with some of the 52,000 police and riot troops that have been deployed on the streets of Moscow as a precaution.
Around 1,600 people have already been arrested in three days of protests in Moscow and Putin's native city of Saint Petersburg — a cultural capital with a tradition of opposition thought going back to pre-Soviet times.
Yet the Kremlin is now facing the threat of demonstrations spreading to the Russian regions after anti-Kremlin groups also organized events for cities stretching from Nizhny Novgorod on the Volga River to Krasnoyarsk in Siberia.
The event in the industrial Ural Mountains city of Chelyabinsk has the largest number of Facebook attendance promises outside of Moscow and Saint Petersburg with more than 4,500 promising to show up.
The Russian authorities may be "underestimating the changes occurring to the mass consciousness of society," the widely read Kommersant broadsheet said.
"And it is quite possible that this may end in a catastrophe not only for the authorities but also for society." — Agence France-Presse
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