Moscow Police Detain Over Sixty Protesters Following Anti-Government Chants
Russian law enforcement detained more than 60 people in central Moscow on Sunday as a Communist Party rally transformed into a vocal demonstration against the September parliamentary elections. The gathering, which drew approximately 2,000 attendees to mark the anniversary of the 1993 constitutional crisis, escalated when demonstrators began shouting anti-government slogans, including Down with the Tsar!
and Down with the party of crooks and thieves!
The shift in the permitted demonstration triggered two waves of police interventions. Independent Telegram news channel Ostorozhno Novosti documented officers charging into the crowd, with eyewitnesses reporting physical aggression that included a protester being kicked while on the ground and a woman grabbed by the hair. Exiled Russian news outlet Agentstvo noted that Sunday’s total represented the highest number of detentions at a Communist Party rally since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Communist Party and Yabloko Members Target United Russia and Putin
The detentions divided evenly across two distinct political organizations participating in the central Moscow gathering. According to OVD-Info, about 60 protesters were arrested in total, with roughly half belonging to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) and the other half belonging to the liberal opposition party Yabloko. Ostorozhno Novosti specified that law enforcement initially seized 26 Communist Party members before detaining around 30 supporters of Yabloko.
Demonstrators directed their chants specifically at President Vladimir Putin and the ruling United Russia party, which officially secured a landslide victory in the September parliamentary elections. International observers widely dismissed the vote as a sham, noting that United Russia captured a record number of seats in the State Duma while the Communist Party—the largest Kremlin-approved opposition grouping—won fewer seats than in previous ballots. On Monday, the Communist Party issued a formal statement challenging the election results and citing intense electoral pressure placed on its candidates.
Protest Coincides with 1993 Russian Constitutional Crisis Anniversary
Sunday’s protest coincided with the anniversary of the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, an event known as ‘Black October’ when then-President Boris Yeltsin ordered military tanks to fire on the parliament building. Historical estimates place the death toll from those events at more than 150 people, with hundreds more sustaining injuries. The Communist Party had originally secured authorization from local authorities to mark this historical anniversary in central Moscow before the gathering pivoted into a contemporary protest against the recent Duma election results.
While the Communist Party maintains its challenge against the September ballot numbers and electoral pressure, the Kremlin has not addressed the specific allegations raised by opposition protesters or the reported police tactics during the demonstrations.