Russia arrests over 4000 at wide protests backing Navalny | Fox News

Bill Browder, Hermitage Capital Management CEO and Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign head, provides insight on the Russian political landscape.MOSCOW (AP) – Chanting slogans against President Vladimir Putin, tens of thousands took to the streets Sunday across Russia to demand the release of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, keeping up nationwide protests that have rattled the Kremlin. Yet, despite threats of jail terms, warnings to social media groups and tight police cordons, the protests again engulfed cities across Russia's 11 time zones on Sunday.The 44-year-old Navalny, an anti-corruption investigator who is Putin's best-known critic, was arrested on Jan.17 upon returning from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin.Russian authorities have rejected the accusations. ((AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko))The Russian Foreign Ministry rejected Blinken's call as a "crude interference in Russia's internal affairs" and accused Washington of trying to destabilize the situation in the country by backing the protests.On Sunday, police detained more than 4,100 people at protests in cities nationwide, according to OVD-Info, a group that monitors political arrests. Facing police cordons around the square, the protest then shifted to other central squares and streets.SOMALIA'S AL-SHABAB REBELS ATTACK MOGADISHU HOTELPolice were randomly picking up people and putting them into police buses, but thousands of protesters marched across the city center for hours, chanting "Putin, resign!" and Putin, thief!" — a reference to an opulent Black Sea estate reportedly built for the Russian leader that was featured in a widely popular video released by Navalny's team."I'm not afraid, because we are the majority," said Leonid Martynov, who took part in the protest.