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Published 13 March 2021
Russian police on Saturday arrested around 200 opposition politicians and municipal deputies at a Moscow conference as authorities tighten the screws on Kremlin critics ahead of parliamentary elections.
A police raid on an opposition conference dedicated to running for municipal office came after President Vladimir Putin’s top critic Alexei Navalny was jailed for two and a half years last month and more than 10,000 protesters detained across the country.
While Russian police routinely break up opposition protests, the mass arrests of municipal deputies at a conference in Moscow were unprecedented.
Participants from more than 50 of Russia’s regions had gathered to discuss parliamentary and local elections in September at a forum organised by a project backed by prominent Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky.