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Thousands Arrested in Protests Supporting Russian Opposition Leader

Charles Maynes

   MOSCOW - Tens of thousands of supporters of jailed opposition
   politician Alexei Navalny thronged the streets of Russia on Saturday,
   defying warnings from authorities that those attending faced police
   arrest and additional health risks because of the coronavirus.

   The protests were called for by Navalny after he was jailed upon his
   return to Russia last weekend from Germany, where he'd been recovering
   from a poisoning attack that nearly killed him last August.

   Independent monitoring group OVD-Info reported more than 3,000 arrests
   as of Saturday night, including Navalny's wife, Yulia, and his aide,
   politician Lyubov Sobol. Several dozen journalists were also detained.

   Yulia Navalnaya confirmed her arrest in Moscow in an Instagram post
   created from inside a police van, apologizing for the look of her
   posting.

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