Snow Riot: Russian cops get heavily pelted with snowballs during Navalny protest

23 January 2021: The scene looks funny but it's not. Russian cops detained more than 3,000 people in a string of co-ordinated violent police attacks on protests in solidarity to jailed russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, following his recovery from a near-fatal nerve agent attack with Novichok in Russia last August. Navalny, Putin's most high-profile critic, was detained after he flew back to Moscow from Berlin last Sunday. On his return, he was immediately taken into custody and lated found guilty of violating parole conditions.

Tens of thousands of people across Russia, in almost 100 cities and towns, defied freezing temperatures and a heavy police presence to take part in some of the largest protests against Vladimir Putin in years. According to OVD, an independent NGO that monitors protests, rallies, and demonstrations, approximately 3.100 protesters have been detained, of which 1.200 in Moscow, out of at least 40,000 people that joined the protest in the russian capital.

Foreign observers stated that the scale of the protests across Russia was unprecedented, while the protest in Moscow was the largest in almost a decade. More protests will follow in the coming days.