Police clash with protesters

CLUB-SWINGING riot police clashed yesterday with opposition supporters as an anti-Kremlin protest dispersed in Russia’s second-largest city, chasing small groups of demonstrators, beating some on the ground and hauling them into police buses.

It was not clear what sparked the violence after the rally, which city authorities had authorised.

Although city authorities gave permission for the rally, they had banned plans for the demonstrators to march afterwards to the city government headquarters.