More than 1,000 people have been arrested at demonstrations across Russia against President Vladimir Putin’s announcement of a partial mobilisation of civilians to fight in Ukraine, a police monitoring group said yesterday.
The OVD-Info monitoring group counted at least 1,054 people detained at rallies in 38 different cities across the country after Putin’s morning address to the nation.
The protests were the largest in Russia since demonstrations that broke out following the announcement of Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine in February.
AFP journalists in the centre of the Russian capital Moscow said at least 50 people were detained by police wearing anti-riot gear on a main shopping street.
In Russia’s former imperial capital, Saint Petersburg, AFP reporters saw police surround small a group of protesters and detain them one-by-one, loading them onto a bus.
Protesters were chanting “No mobilisation!”