The Kremlin said on Thursday that thousands of arrests at protests against the jailing of Opposition leader Alexei Navalny were a necessary response to the unsanctioned rallies and strongly rebuffed Western criticism.
Asked about the harsh treatment of thousands of detainees, many of whom spent long hours on police buses and were put in overcrowded cells, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that they have to bear responsibility for joining the unauthorised protests.
“The situation wasn’t provoked by law enforcement, it was provoked by participants in unsanctioned actions,” Peskov said in a call with reporters.
Massive protests erupted after Navalny was arrested Jan. 17 upon returning from his five-month convalescence in Germany from a nerve agent poisoning, which he has blamed on the Kremlin.