Russian police detain over 800 in opposition crackdown in Moscow

Russian police detained nearly 800 people attending a protest in Moscow on Saturday to demand free elections after authorities warned the demonstration was illegal. An independent monitoring group said police had detained 685 people. Police said they had detained 600 and said 1,500 had attended the protest, though footage of demonstrations which flared in different parts of Moscow.

Saturday's protest was smaller than one a week earlier, but underlined the determination of some Kremlin critics -- especially younger people -- to keep pressing to open up Russia's tightly-choreographed political system. The focus of protesters is a prohibition on a number of opposition-minded candidates, some of whom are allies of jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny, from taking part in a September election for Moscow's city legislature. That vote, though local, is seen as a dry run for a national parliamentary election in 2021.