Russian opposition leaders accused Vladimir Putin of changing tactics to crack down on dissent after riot police detained hundreds of protesters challenging the legitimacy of his presidential election victory. Black-helmeted police hauled away more than 500 people, including several opposition leaders, who attended unsanctioned rallies in Moscow and St Petersburg on Monday or refused to disperse at the end of a rally that had been permitted. Many including Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption blogger who has become a leading light of the protest movement, were quickly released but some faced the prospect of receiving short jail sentences on Tuesday. After three months of protests that passed off peacefully, the police intervention sent a clear signal that Putin is losing patience with the opposition and will crack down if protesters step out of line. But the restraint shown by most police, even as they bundled protesters into vans, also suggested that Putin is determined not to give his critics the chance to depict him as a dictator ready to suppress any challenge to his authority. “The use of force and detention of opposition politicians could have been avoided,” defeated presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov said in a Twitter message late on Monday. “It was a peaceful rally. I am outraged by the use of force against people who came to express their views. Today's events at Pushkin Square broke the tradition of the recent peaceful protest rallies in the country.”
