Protesters rally against Kremlin's economic policy

Thousands of protesters rallied across Russia today to criticise the government’s economic course and its response to the global financial crisis.

The protests, among the strongest yet, reflected public anger over worsening economic conditions and posed a challenge to the Kremlin, which had faced little threat from the fragmented opposition and politically apathetic population during the years of oil-driven boom.

About 2,500 people marched across the far eastern port of Vladivostok to denounce the Cabinet’s decision to increase car import tariffs, and some shouted slogans demanding prime minister Vladimir Putin to resign.

Many in the region make their living from importing cars. Police, who brutally dispersed a similar protest in Vladivostok last month, did not intervene.

In Moscow, about 1,000 Communist demonstrators rallied on a central square surrounded by heavy police cordons.

There, Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov said the government must abandon Western economic models and conduct broad nationalisation. Several hundred police blocked the square but did not try to break up the protest, which had been sanctioned by authorities.

Eduard Limonov, leader of the banned National Bolshevik Party, was detained by police at another Moscow square. Mr Limonov is one of the most radical critics of the Kremlin, and members of his group have taken a leading role in many previous street protests.

Police also moved to disperse demonstrators from the United Civil Front, an umbrella movement uniting several radical opposition groups, who launched an unsanctioned rally on a street near the Kremlin.

Protesters gathered near a subway station but then took a train across the city to another location in central Moscow, catching authorities by surprise.

Police detained some protesters, and activists of pro-Kremlin youth groups brutally beat several others, but several dozen demonstrators marched on a downtown street, shouting slogans: “Down with the government!” and “Russia without Putin!”

“We are demanding civil freedoms and pushing for the government’s resignation,” said one of the protesters, Valery Nadezhdin.

Several truckloads of riot police only arrived at the site after protesters dispersed.

Another small group of activists from the opposition youth group “We” picketed near the headquarters of the Russian government with blank posters and their lips sealed with tape. Their action was peaceful but, nonetheless, police detained all the action participants.

The authorities sought to counter the opposition protests with a rally of the main pro-Kremlin United Russia party next to the Kremlin – the area off limits to any other demonstrations. Army soldiers served hot tea and offered cookies to some 9,000 participants who gathered on a crisp sunny day with temperatures around -14 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit).

United Russia also staged similar rallies in several other cities across Russia.

In St Petersburg, where authorities barred opposition groups from holding rallies, they put individual protesters on the streets.

One of them, Denis Vasilyev of the United Civil Front, stood on a street with a placard saying: “Put the Government Under People’s Control!”

Police officers took down his personal details but did not immediately move to detain him.

The protests are posing a growing challenge to the Kremlin, which has sidelined political opponents and established tight controls over civil society and the media during Mr Putin’s eight-year presidential tenure, rolling back many post-Soviet freedoms.