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  • 2021-01-29 (xsd:date)
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  • translated from the Russian (en)
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  • The Russian Foreign Ministry blamed the U.S. Embassy in Moscow for the nationwide demonstrations on January 23, when thousands took to the streets across Russia protesting Alexey Navalny’s arrest.Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent opponent, was arrested two days earlier in Moscow immediately after returning from Germany, where he’d recovered from a near-fatal poisoning.Navalny and the investigative website Bellingcat accused Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, of planning and carrying out the poisoning using the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok. Navalny’s supporters in Russia called for protests, while some local authorities refused to grant protestors permission to assemble. Still, thousands took to the streets in more than 100 cities and towns across Russia, demanding freedom for Navalny and challenging Putin’s presidency. Riot police detain a protester during January 23, 2021, rally for Navalny.Photos and videos showed riot police breaking up the demonstrations, attacking journalists, beating elderly and young protesters alike, and dragging scores of detainees into police cars. By the end of the day, the police had arrested some 3,600 protesters.Governments and rights organizations worldwide condemned the Russian authorities for brutalizing the protesters and for Navalny’s arrest, and they urged the Kremlin to immediately release all prisoners.Amid the international outcry, Russia homed in on one voice – that of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.In a series of press statements, social media posts and interviews, Russia’s Foreign Ministry accused the embassy of interfering in Russia’s internal affairs and inciting violence using social media.The claims are false: None of the embassy’s posts encouraged violence.The U.S. Embassy in Moscow maintains official Russian language accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the Russian social network vKontakte.Polygraph.info could find no messages or statements regarding the arrest of Navalny, the protests or the riot police brutality, or anything related to Russia’s political or human rights affairs, on embassy accounts on Facebook, Instagram and vKontakte – either before, during or after the protests. On January 23, the embassy sent out five tweets on its Russian-language Twitter account reacting to Navalny’s arrest and the demonstrations.The first tweet was a Russian-language summary of a statement made by the U.S. mission at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe demanding freedom for Navalny.The second tweet, translated from the Russian, stated: We are following the reports about the protests in 38 Russian cities. More than 350 peaceful protesters and journalists have been detained. The U.S. supports the right of all people to protest peacefully (en)
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