Police detained 14 people including opposition politician Ilya Yashin at a sit-in protest against President Vladimir Putin Wednesday in Moscow's popular Gorky Park. Police swiftly detained protestors including Yashin, who regularly speaks at protest rallies, after they attempted to hold a sit-in protest at the park. "They put me into a police van for clapping," Yashin wrote on Twitter, saying 12 detainees were taken to a police station. Two other protestors were detained separately, Left Front radical group wrote on Twitter.

By Timothy Heritage MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian protestors unfurled a huge banner demanding the release of "political prisoners" on Monday, at the start of a day of protest against President Vladimir Putin intended to revive their flagging opposition movement. The banner, declaring "Freedom for the May 6 prisoners!", rippled over three floors at the top of a high-rise apartment block on Novy Arbat, one of Moscow's busiest streets. It was quickly taken down and one man was arrested.

Tens of thousands of people turned out for a protest in central Moscow on Monday marking one year since a demonstration ahead of Vladimir Putin's Kremlin inauguration ended in mass arrests, organisers said. "The whole square is full. There are tens of thousands of us," prominent opposition figure Boris Nemtsov told a huge sea of people crammed into Bolotnaya Square across the Moscow river from the Kremlin. Police however said only 6,000 were present at the start. am-sjw/zak/gd

Thousands of Muscovites were due to rally Sunday in commemoration of a bloody protest one year ago in which more than 400 were detained after showing their frustration with Vladimir Putin's return to the presidency. The "Spring March of Freedom" is being held almost a year to the day since Russian authorities deployed baton-wielding interior ministry troops to disperse a crowd of tens of thousands on the eve of Putin's May 7 swearing-in ceremony. Dozens of demonstrators and several police officers ended up in hospital in the ensuing clashes.