Russia's Big, Angry Protest Movement

Perhaps only the police helicopters circling overhead could accurately estimate the number of demonstrators braving the fierce cold to protest on Sakharov Prospekt on 24 December against the government of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the apparently rigged elections to the State Duma held 20 days earlier. The state-owned news agency RIA Novosti reported the laughably low figure of 29 thousand, the event's organizers claimed 120 thousand were in attendance (which, as far as I could gauge, appeared closer to the truth); but the respected daily Kommersant put the figure at 200 thousand.

Whatever the number, gone are the times when a small cluster of hardened oppositionists gathered on the central Triumfal'naya Square to suffer almost immediate arrest, without arousing the evident interest or sympathy of passers-by. After several half-measures announced by the government to redress public outrage over the Duma polls and Putin's televised swipe at demonstrators as condom-draped stooges of Hillary Clinton, the opposition has grown exponentially and hardened the tone of its demands. It has, in short, seized the initiative -- and shows no sign of backing down.