Moscow protest against Putin attracts at least 25,000; other demonstrations throughout Russia

[pampango]

3. NYT: Thousands Gather in Russia to Protest Legislative Elections

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/world/europe/thousands-protest-in-moscow-russia-in-defiance-of-putin.html


Protesters gathered in Bolotnaya Square in central Moscow on Saturday

Tens of thousands of Russians gathered peacefully in central Moscow on Saturday to shout “Putin is a Thief” and “Russia Without Putin,” forcing the Kremlin to confront a level of public discontent that has not been seen here since Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin first became president 12 years ago.

The crowd overflowed Bolotnaya Square, forcing stragglers to climb trees and watch from the riverbank opposite. It included liberals, nationalists and communists, but could best be described as the urban middle class, a group that has grown richer and larger during the Putin era. An hour into the event, police estimated the crowd at 25,000, which would make it the largest antigovernment action since the fall of the Soviet Union.

But the estimates of protest organizers ranged from 40,000 to 80,000.

The authorities had been trying to discourage attendance, saying that widespread protests could culminate in a disaster on the scale of the Soviet collapse, which occurred 20 years ago this month. Officials have portrayed the demonstrators as traitors backed by the United States and as revolutionaries dedicated to a violent, Libya-style overthrow of Mr. Putin.

“In the ’80s and ’90s, the liberals, having started a war with the Communist Party, did not notice that they were destroying the country,” Dmitry O. Rogozin, Russia’s ambassador to NATO and a close ally of Mr. Putin, wrote on Twitter on Friday. “Don’t let them repeat this crime.”