Police detain Navalny

MOSCOW: Russian police wrestled opposition leader Alexei Navalny into a patrol wagon on Sunday, moments after he appeared at a rally to urge voters to boycott what he said would be a rigged presidential election in March.

Navalny has little chance of influencing the election, likely to be won comfortably by President Vladimir Putin, but his ability to use social media to mobilise crowds of mostly young protesters in major cities has irked the Kremlin.

The numbers who showed up at protests across Russia on Sunday - some shouting "Putin is a thief" - were lower than previous demonstrations Navalny had staged, according to estimates from Reuters reporters, indicating the momentum may have shifted away from him.

Video footage posted on social media showed Navalny appear on Moscow’s main thoroughfare, Tverskaya Street, a few hundred metres (yards) from the Kremlin, to join several hundred supporters taking part in the protest, which the authorities had said was illegal.