More than 2,500 are arrested at rallies across the country as cities see huge turnouts in support of opposition leader

As riot police surged to retake Moscow’s Pushkin square on Saturday, all you could see of them from the crowd were their truncheons raised high, ready to strike. Then their black helmets came into view, and finally they pushed forward, driving waves of panicked Russians out on to the boulevards and side streets of the capital. “Respected citizens, the current event is illegal. We are doing everything to ensure your safety,” an officer repeated over a loudspeaker, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

For more than a decade, the Kremlin has used every tool at its disposal to keep Russians off the streets, wielding fear and boredom to make protesting against Vladimir Putin seem pointless. And yet in defiant scenes on Saturday in cities across Russia, from St Petersburg to Vladivostok and even in Yakutsk, where protesters braved temperatures below -50C, tens of thousands of Russians sent a message to a Kremlin that has squeezed out all opposition in Russia: enough is enough.

More than 1,870 arrested across country in one of largest demonstrations against Putin’s rule

Tens of thousands of Alexei Navalny supporters have protested across Russia in one of the largest demonstrations against Vladimir Putin’s rule in the past decade.

More than 1,870 people were arrested by riot police on Saturday at dozens of unsanctioned rallies throughout the country, spanning from Kaliningrad in the west to Vladivostok in the far east, as the turnout of those calling for the opposition leader’s release from jail far surpassed many protesters’ expectations.

More than a thousand people have been arrested at rallies in towns and cities across Russia as they called for the release of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny from jail. The protests are thought to be the largest in Russia since 2017

• Thousands of Alexei Navalny supporters join protests across Russia

Police expected to break up demonstrations against detention of opposition leader

Russia is braced for mass protests on Saturday as thousands of supporters of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny are expected to hold rallies across the country to call for his release from jail.

Police are expected to break up the unsanctioned demonstrations in Moscow, St Petersburg and dozens of other cities in what allies of Navalny say is their best chance of convincing the Kremlin to free him.