LIVE: Putin Brands Navalny Protests ‘Dangerous’ as More Rallies Called

(Jan. 25) President Vladimir Putin branded protests in support of jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny “dangerous” for Russia, defending a widening crackdown after tens of thousands of people took to the streets in cities across the nation.

Saturday’s demonstrations were the biggest since 2018, with one pollster estimating protesters in Moscow numbered as many as 35,000, the largest unauthorized rally in the capital of Putin’s 21-year rule. Police detained more than 3,500 people in 125 cities, including almost 1,500 in Moscow, according to monitoring group OVD-Info, though most were released within hours.

Protests “must be conducted within the limits of the law,” Putin told students Monday at a televised videoconference in which he compared organizers who appealed to minors to participate to “terrorists.” Without mentioning Navalny by name, he said it was “irresponsible” to use protests in service of political ambitions, and pointed to U.S. prosecutions of those who invaded the Capitol on Jan. 6 as evidence that other countries also react harshly to opponents who break the law.

Navalny ally Leonid Volkov called for new protests Jan. 31. The showdown marks a serious challenge for Putin, 68, who pushed to change the constitution last year to allow him to continue as president until 2036. His support fell to a record last year as the economy buckled under the strain of the Covid-19 epidemic. Putin has yet to say if he’ll run for a fifth term in 2024.

Navalny, 44, was imprisoned just over a week ago after he returned to Moscow from Berlin, where he’d been recovering from a near-fatal nerve-agent poisoning that he and Western governments blame on Putin’s security service. The Kremlin denies responsibility.

The opposition leader faces a prison term of as long as 3 1/2 years at a Feb. 2 hearing for allegedly violating his probation under a suspended sentence during his treatment in Germany, while potential new charges also carry a maximum 10 years in jail. Officials close to the leadership warn that the Kremlin is determined to lock up Putin’s most prominent opponent for years.

The court hearing will take place just before European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell travels to Moscow next week to meet with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Borrell said he’ll raise Navalny’s jailing during his visit.

A top Russian Foreign Ministry official reprimanded U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan on Monday after Moscow accused the American Embassy of encouraging the demonstrations. The diplomatic mission ahead of the rallies urged U.S. citizens not to attend them, providing details of the planned venues. The State Department later condemned what it termed “the use of harsh tactics against protesters and journalists.”

In his first public comments on a video Navalny released alleging Putin has a gigantic palace on the Black Sea coast, the president said he hadn’t watched the whole 2-hour film, which has gained more than 85 million views on YouTube since its release Jan. 19. Putin denied that he or any of his close relatives owned the luxurious villa, calling the video “boring” before asking the students to focus questions on other topics.

The wave of protests is a test for the opposition, which has seen previous surges in anti-government activity fade as the authorities have taken a hard line against participants. The Kremlin in recent years has imposed steadily tighter restrictions on public protests.

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