MOSCOW // Russian police beat demonstrators with batons and hauled away about 250 protesters yesterday after skirmishes broke out at a demonstration in Moscow against Vladimir Putin on the eve of his return to the presidency.
Opposition leaders Alexei Navalny, Boris Nemtsov and Sergei Udaltsov were among those detained at the rally, which about 20,000 people attended.
Violence erupted when police tried to push back protesters who advanced towards them holding metal crowd barriers, Reuters reporters at the rally said.
Police, forming a line to prevent protesters moving towards a bridge leading across the Moscow river to the Kremlin, struck several protesters on the head and the demonstrators then fought back with flagposts before the scuffles died down.
The violence came at the end of a day of protests in several cities against Mr Putin, who will be sworn in for a third, six-year term as president today.
Previous protests after the flawed parliamentary elections in December had been orderly. The crowds, sometimes as big as 100,000 or more, had kept to agreed-upon protest sites and routes, even making a point of thanking police who stood guard but did not interfere.
Yesterday's confrontations likely reflected the anger and impotence among protesters upset that Mr Putin was handily elected to a new term in the Kremlin despite their defiance.
Putin has dismissed the protesters as pampered youths and western stooges.
Yesterday's demonstration started peacefully, with protesters marching down a wide avenue to a square on an island near the Kremlin, where authorities had approved a gathering of up to 5,000.
But some demonstrators aimed to turn up the pressure by trying to split off and head to the Kremlin across the river.
A phalanx of riot police blocked the approach to the bridge. After about an hour of confrontation, police began pushing protesters back towards the square and harshly detained some of them. Some demonstrators threw stones at the police and tear gas wafted through the air, although it was not clear who had deployed it.
Before the march turned violent, some of the demonstrators acknowledged that Mr Putin's March election win has been a blow to morale.
"It's true that some have been disappointed," said Yuri Baranov, a 46-year-old information technology specialist. But "the most important thing is that people have awakened."
Others said they doubt the protests would spur any long-term change.
"I would like to think that our voice will be heard, but I am not totally sure of this," said Yelena Karpsova, 47, who came to the rally from Tula, about 200 kilometres south of Moscow.
* Reuters with additional reporting by the Associated Press
