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Braving bitter cold and attempts at intimidation, protests unfold across Russia.

From the frozen streets of Russia’s Far East and Siberia to the grand plazas of Moscow and St. Petersburg, tens of thousands of Russians rallied in support of the jailed opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny on Saturday in what was emerging as the biggest nationwide showdown in years between the Russian authorities and critics of the Kremlin.

Protests began to unfold in the eastern regions of Russia, a country of 11 time zones and, as the hours passed, moved like a wave across the sprawling nation.

In Moscow’s Pushkin Square, people flanked in every direction by riot police officers chanted “Freedom!” Passing drivers honked their horns in support.

Even before the rally got underway, police officers in camouflage and black helmets started detaining some protesters, although it was hard to discern any pattern to who was snatched off the street.

As the crowd swelled in size in the afternoon, the situation grew increasingly tense.

At one point police officers rushed into a group of protesters, swinging batons. Some in the crowd responded by throwing objects, including what appeared to be plastic bottles, at the police.

It appeared to be the biggest day of protest across the country since at least 2017, though it was far from clear whether the show of dissent would succeed in pushing the Kremlin to change course.

In the cities of Vladivostok on the Pacific Ocean and Irkutsk and Novosibirsk in Siberia, footage showed crowds of well over 1,000 people shouting chants like “We are in charge here!” and “We won’t leave!”

In Yakutsk, the world’s coldest city, scores of protesters in the freezing fog braved temperatures of minus 60 Fahrenheit. In Khabarovsk, the city on the Chinese border that was the site of anti-Kremlin protests last summer, hundreds who returned to the streets were met with an overwhelming force of riot police officers.

“I was never a big supporter of Navalny, and yet I understand perfectly well that this is a very serious situation,” Vitaliy Blazhevich, 57, a university Russian teacher, said in a telephone interview about why he had come out to rally for Mr. Navalny in Khabarovsk.

“There’s always hope that something will change,” Mr. Blazhevich said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/23/worl ... ussia.html