Protests held after December’s vote attracted up to 100,000 people in the largest discontent in Russia’s post-Soviet history.
Although violations at the presidential vote were numerous, observers have viewed the vote as fairer than December’s.
Opposition leader Garry Kasparov echoed that sentiment from the stage ”This was not an election,” said Kasparov, a former chess grandmaster. Russian actor Maksim Vitorgan, who was among thousands of independent observers to have volunteered to monitor the presidential vote, said ”an amusement park would envy” the large-scale fraud he witnessed.
Putin ”won the war for numbers. Vitorgan added, voicing widespread concern that the opposition movement is losing its voice.
Other protesters, however, remained optimistic despite the fact that Saturday’s turnout could not match the massive rallies in December and February.
Mikhail Solontsev, a 19-year-old student, who has rallied at opposition protests since December, said the pressure on Putin is already high, and it’s up to people to increase it. On Monday, the day after the election, Moscow police arrested some 250 people who stayed on a central-city square after the time authorized for a protest rally ran out.