Anti-Corruption Protests Across Russia Seek To Rattle The Kremlin ~ How Do It's

NBC News has reported that on Monday thousands of Russians protested against corruption as part of opposition leader Alexei Navalny's long-shot drive to unseat President Vladimir Putin at the ballot box next year. Navalny is aiming to repeat the nationwide protests that rattled the Kremlin three months ago. The scale and geographical reach of the protests will show if Navalny can build on the success of rallies in March calling for Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a close Putin ally, to quit. Those protests were the largest since a wave of anti-Kremlin demonstrations in 2012 and resulted in more than 1,000 arrests, putting rare domestic pressure on Putin. Monday is Russia Day, a public holiday, a factor that may boost turnout. Navalny's website reported Monday that protests were held in more than a half-dozen cities in the Far East, including the major Pacific ports of Vladivostok and Khabarovsk and in Siberia's Barnaul. Photos on the website suggested turnouts of hundreds at the rallies. “I want our taxes to be converted into roads, schools and hospitals, not into yachts, palaces and vineyards” Eleven demonstrators were arrested in Vladivostok, according to OVD-Info, a website that monitors political repressions. There is a risk of violence. Authorities in Moscow, the location of what is expected to be the largest protest, authorized a venue well away from the city center. But Navalny said late on Sunday that the authorities had pressured firms into refusing to supply him and his allies with sound and video equipment to make themselves heard and seen. For that reason, he said he was switching the venue to Tverskaya Street, Moscow's main avenue near the Kremlin. That means the protest will be illegal in the authorities' eyes and that riot police could be ordered to move in to break it up.