Russians Brave Icy Temperatures to Protest Putin and Election<br />And vote against Putin." Even among the protesters, there was support for this position, with one man yelling out, "Don’t support<br />the boycott, you will be helping Putin if you do!" Some political analysts suggested that the boycott was a poor tactic.<br />A video broadcast from Omsk, in central Siberia, showed a woman yelling, "They don’t want elections<br />because they don’t want anything to change." The protests, expected in almost 100 cities, were called by Aleksei A. Navalny, a charismatic, anti-corruption opposition leader, after he was barred from running for the presidency because of legal problems widely seen as manufactured to prevent his candidacy.<br />28, 2018<br />MOSCOW — Protesters across Russia braved icy temperatures on Sunday to demonstrate against the lack of choice in a March presidential election<br />that is virtually certain to see President Vladimir V. Putin chosen for a fourth term.<br />Mr. Navalny, who has made a name for himself as an anti-corruption campaigner, finds himself on one side of a dispute over whether<br />opponents of Mr. Putin should boycott the vote or exercise their right, even if no other candidate stands a chance of winning.<br />For how many more years will your business receive less revenue than it is due?" Mr. Navalny was detained before he reached the<br />several thousand demonstrators gathered in Pushkin Square in central Moscow and other main avenues closer to the Kremlin.
