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Russian Police Detain Two Opposition Leaders After Overnight Sit-In


Anticorruption activist Aleksei Navalny was arrested along with fellow opposition leader Sergei Udaltsov.
Anticorruption activist Aleksei Navalny was arrested along with fellow opposition leader Sergei Udaltsov.
Russian police have detained two prominent leaders of the country's opposition movement after they staged an overnight sit-in protest close to the Kremlin.

Opposition figures Alexei Navalny and Sergei Udaltsov spent the night of May 7-May-out in the open with hundreds of other anti-Putin protestors in the Kitai Gorod district of central Moscow, only about one kilometer from the Kremlin.

They were both taken to a nearby police station and later freed.

It remains unclear if they have been charged.

Hundreds of their supporters remained on the morning of May 8 after spending the night on the small square in central Moscow.

The incident comes after Vladmir Putin was inaugurated for a historic third term as Russian president on May 7.

On the same day, police in Moscow arrested dozens of opposition supporters as new protest actions broke out against the newly-installed president.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP

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