Daily US Times: Russian police have detained close aides of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny as a string of nationwide protests gets under way.

Police have broken up demonstrations in the eastern Khabarovsk region, amid stern warnings for people to stay home.

Supporters of Mr Navalny, who is currently in jail, flooded social media with calls to rally at protests expected in dozens of cities later.

Mr Navalny is Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s most high-profile critic.

He was arrested last Sunday after he flew back to Moscow from Germany, where he had been recovering from a near-fatal nerve agent attack in Russia last August.

He was immediately taken into custody after the landed Russia and found guilty of violating parole conditions. The Russian opposition leader says it is a trumped-up case designed to silence him.

More than 60 million people have watched his new video about President Vladimir Putin’s alleged luxury Black Sea palace.

The Kremlin denies the property belongs to president Putin.

Unauthorized rallies are being planned in more than 60 cities across the country for Saturday. Police in Moscow say any unauthorized demonstrations and provocations will be “immediately suppressed”.

A thousand people were reported to have come onto the streets in the Khabarovsk region, with some of them already detained. Protests have been displayed in other places too.

Mr Navalny’s wife Yulia said she would demonstrate in Moscow “for myself, for him, for our children, for the values and the ideals that we share”.

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