Russian marchers mark bloody anti-Putin protest

MOSCOW: About a thousand Muscovites rallied yesterday in memory of a bloody protest one year ago in which more than 400 were detained after showing their frustration with Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency.
The “Spring March of Freedom” was held almost a year to the day since Russian authorities deployed baton-wielding interior ministry troops to disperse a crowd of tens of thousands on the eve of Putin’s May 7 swearing-in ceremony.
Dozens of demonstrators and several police officers ended up in hospital in the ensuing clashes.
More than two dozen people now face years in prison on disturbance of order charges. Several have been jailed already.
“I came out to protest against the dictatorship that was installed under the Putin regime and against the political repressions,” a Muscovite named Oleg said as people of all ages around him unfurled banners reading “Freedom to political prisoners” under the heavy grey sky.
But the protest movement has grown fractured since its heyday in the winter of 2011-2012 — a time when discontent was at a peak over what were seen as stacked December 2011 parliamentary elections and Putin’s decision to return to the Kremlin after completing two terms in 2000-2008.
Activists can now barely agree on how they should proceed or reconcile views that range from the far left — some even openly embracing the late Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin — to those who support a Western-style democracy. Those fissures were embarrassingly laid bare when opposition leaders failed to agree on a date to mark the first anniversary of the now infamous protest. A much smaller group marched on Sunday instead of the actual anniversary Monday because they believed that most of its supporters work during the week. “I am disappointed with the numbers — I thought there would be more people,” said a 39-year-old woman who identified herself only as Marina. “The opposition has grown more quiet,” she said.
The thousand or so people in attendance were surrounded by what Moscow city authorities said was a police presence of 4,000 officers.
Yet a much larger section of the protest movement that includes opposition figureheads such as the corruption fighter Alexei Navalny and novelist Boris Akunin decided to go ahead with their Monday event.
Observers say large numbers are expected then amid growing anger over a widening crackdown on dissenting voices in the country.
Putin’s thumping March 2012 presidential victory with 63.6 percent of the vote at first seemed to take all the air out of the opposition movement.