With less than a year before Russia's nex presidential election, vocal anti-Putin critic Alexei Navalny found himself arrested yet again as protests start to bubble up throughout the country.
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'Down with the Czar': Kremlin critic Navalny arrested as his nationwide anti-Putin protests gain steam
With less than a year before Russia's latest elections, anti-Putin protests are starting to bubble up throughout the country.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is escorted upon his arrival for a hearing after being detained at the protest against corruption and demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, at the Tverskoi court in Moscow, Russia March 27, 2017.
Navalny, Russia's most prominent anti-Kremlin opposition leader announced his bid for the 2018 presidency back in December, and was one of the dozens of people arrested in the latest string of anti-Kremlin protests to take place in Moscow on the country's national holiday.
Authorities arrested Navalny after he called for his protest to be moved to Moscow's central Tverskaya street, despite being ordered to hold it in specific, out-of-the-way locations.
He claimed that authorities prevented his team of contractors from installing sound equipment for the gathering as they had planned.
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After thousands of people started marching through the center of the city chanting "Russia without Putin," "shame," and "Down with the Czar," the police started trying to disperse the crowd by handing out arrests. Even before the protest started, police detained Navalny as he exited his apartment.
After the latest arrest, Navalny's wife Yulia tweeted a photo from her husband's account of her husband being led away in police vans with the caption "Happy Russia Day!"
As Russia's election draws near, the Kremlin has stepped up its efforts to curb any anti-government demonstrations. After Monday's protest, Moscow's city hall said it would arrest those who those who gather in the center of the city with posters "of a political nature" or shout any anti-Kremlin slogans.
Navalny's bid to run for president, once seen largely as a joke given the Kremlin's political stronghold, has clearly agitated the Russian government to the point of cracking down on every kind of political gatherings and taking him seriously.
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