A small group of Navalny opponents at the Manezh Square protest are chanting the following reference to the the Maidan protests in Ukraine, and to Magadan, a transit hub for Soviet prisoners in Russia's Far East:
"If you start a Maidan, you'll be shipped to Magadan."
Another tweet from Aleksei Navalny about his brief attempt to attend the Manezh Square protest: "I was happy to be a small part of something that makes it possible for millions to gather -- if only for 15 minutes."
Navalny tweets: "The fact that I've been detained doesn't mean anything. Anything I can do, you can do also."
There are multiple reports from central Moscow that Aleksei Navalny has been detained on his way to the Manezh Square protest.
Aleksei Navalny appears to have exited the metro in central Moscow for the protest at Manezh Square.
There are unconfirmed reports on Twitter that Aleksei Navalny was arrested on his way to the planned Manezh Square protest in defiance of his house arrest. His associate and ex-campaign manager, Leonid Volkov, has denied these reports in an interview with Ekho Moskvy.
Aleksei Navalny says that despite the conditions of his house arrest, he is heading to Manezh Square near the Kremlin to protest today's verdict in the criminal case against him and his brother, Oleg.
Ahead of planned Navalny protests in Moscow, Russian state media regulator Roskomnadzor warns four online outlets -- BFM.ru, Polit.ru, Business-Gazeta.ru and Zona.Media -- for “publishing materials containing public incitements to change the constitutional order” in Russia, Vedomosti reports.
The issuing of verdicts in Russian criminal trials can be a long slog, with the judge often delivering lengthy opinions that recount in detail the evidence against the accused. It famously took two weeks for a Moscow judge to read the final judgment in Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s 2005 conviction on fraud and tax evasion charges.
Today’s conviction of Aleksei Navalny and his brother Oleg was a rush job by comparison: It took Judge Yelena Korobchenko just 15 minutes to hand down the convictions, the BBC reports.
Navalny writes on his Facebook page that the verdict was issued with significant violations of legal protocol. He and his brother didn’t receive a copy of the judgment, and Korobchenko said the final verdict won’t be ready earlier than January 12, after the long New Year holidays in Russia, Navalny writes:
“You can’t just handcuff someone and not give him the text of the verdict. … Judge Korobchenko was literally given a small piece of paper (most likely this morning) with the sentences written on them and told: Go and read it.”