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Protesters arrested during anti-Putin rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was detained along with more than a thousand of his supporters on Saturday during nationwide rallies against Vladimir Putin as police used force to break up rallies in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

Riot police beat protesters with truncheons, dragged them along the ground and threw them into police vans in Moscow, in an attempt to disperse a huge crowd that packed Pushkin Square to protest against Putin’s swearing-in ceremony on Monday.

Police grabbed Navalny, 41, soon after he showed up at the rally, as some shouted “Shame” in Ukrainian, a famous slogan of the Kiev uprising that ousted a Kremlin-backed regime in 2014. (AFP)

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