Russian riot police were out in large numbers across the country on January 31 to prevent and break up unsanctioned rallies called for by anti-corruption activist Aleksei Navalny and his team. Navalny's wife, Yulia Navalnaya, was among more than 1,650 people detained in Moscow, where the opposition leader has been jailed for 30 days on charges he says are fabricated.
By late evening on January 31, 5,135 confirmed detentions had taken place in 86 locations nationwide, the non-governmental police watchdog OVD-Info reported. That compares with an estimated total of 4,033 detentions in 186 towns and cities for the initial pro-Navalny demonstrations on January 23.
Out of the 86 cities, Moscow (1,653 detainees) and St. Petersburg (1,159 detainees) headlined OVD-Info’s list of verified detentions on January 31, but several other cities (Krasnoyarsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Tver, Voronezh, Vladivostok, and Novosibirsk) had more than 100 detainees as well.
