, ABC News reports.
Police say at least 28,000 people turned out for the Moscow rally, although one of the opposition leaders, Vladimir Ryzhkov, put the crowd's size at up to 120,000 people. "Next time, we will bring one million people onto the streets of Moscow," Alexei Navalny, who has emerged as a figurehead of the protest movement, told the crowd. The opposition leaders pointed out that the demands of the previous rally on Bolotnaya Square were ignored by the government and called on the opposition supporters to stick to their demands.
Bringing together liberals, nationalists, anarchists, environmentalists, communists and urban youth, protest organisers settled on a list of some 19 speakers that included anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, rock singer Yuri Shevchuk, journalist and poet Dmitry Bykov, young opposition leader Ilya Yashin, journalist Leonid Parfyonov, writer Boris Akunin and others.
The rally in Moscow took place without any aggressive incidents.
Today opposition rallies took place in all major cities of Russia, and, according to the Moscow rally's organizers, the police arrested a number of protesters in Vladivostok.
The opposition says United Russia benefited from widespread voting irregularities and international monitors said the vote was slanted in the ruling party's favour. The protestors also demand freedom for all political convicts. In the protestors' opinion, President Medvedev's response to the rally's demands was unsatisfactory, while PM Putin managed to insult the whole nation in his 'video link' with the people. Popular Russian satirist Viktor Shenderovich, who also took part in the event, pointed out that, ironically, the high turnout on the rally on Sakharova Avenue is mostly thanks to Putin and his inappropriate reaction to the protestors' lawful demands.
The Kremlin's Council for Civil Society and Human Rights said the alleged irregularities discredited the new State Duma lower house. It said this posed "a real threat to the Russian state" and called for the resignation of Vladimir Churov, the head of the Central Electoral Commission. Mr Medvedev promised on Thursday to relax the Kremlin's grip on power, including measures to restore elections for regional governors and to allow half the seats in the State Duma to be directly elected in the regions.
But opposition leaders said the moves were too little, too late, by a leader who has carried out few of his reform promises since he succeeded Mr Putin as president, and who was barred by the constitution from running for a third successive term.
