1600 demonstrators arrested during anti-Putin protests in Russia

American Thinker- Russian President Vladimir Putin may have won his rigged election in a landslide and there is little doubt that he is popular with a majority of Russian citizens.

But most Russians live in a fantasy land of propaganda created by Putin’s government. Those that don’t, and those that realize the authoritarian nature of Putin’s rule, try to resist.

Tens of thousands of anti-Putin protesters took to the streets of 90 cities yesterday leading to more than 1600 arrests, including opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was barred from running against Putin last March on trumped up charges of corruption.

Reuters:

Before his detention, he briefly addressed supporters in central Moscow, leading them in chants of ‘Down with the Tsar!”.

“They said that this city belongs to Putin. Is that right?” Navalny asked his supporters. “Do you need a tsar?” he asked, eliciting a collective roar of “No!”

Putin won re-election overwhelmingly in March, extending his grip over Russia for six more years – a tenure of 24 years that would make him Moscow’s longest-serving leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.  more