MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said that nationwide protests planned for Saturday to call for the release of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny were illegal and were being promoted by people it called provocateurs.
Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, was detained at the weekend and later jailed for alleged parole violations after flying back to Russia for the first time since being poisoned by a military-grade nerve agent.
(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Andrew Osborn)
