Russian police detain 380 at anti-Putin protests: monitors

Russian police detained 380 activists in Moscow and Saint Petersburg Sunday for holding unauthorized protests against President Vladimir Putin.

"We know of 380 detained. 13 were detained in Saint Petersburg and 346 in Moscow, who were taken to 19 police stations," said OVD-Info, a rights group that monitors detentions at political protests. Moscow police said previously they had detained 260 people.

The demonstrations took place after radical opposition politician Vyacheslav Maltsev appealed on his website for supporters to hold protests across the country, calling for a "people's revolution" to end Putin's rule.

Many of those detained were carrying knives, knuckledusters and pistols that can fire rubber bullets, TASS state news agency reported.

Police, some in helmets and bullet-proof vests, reportedly picked up protesters one by one near the Kremlin in central Moscow.

A reporter for popular Echo of Moscow radio station, Andrei Yezhov, wrote on Twitter that he was detained, but later released without charge.

On Saturday, police detained dozens of nationalist activists in southern Moscow at an anti-Kremlin march on the public holiday known as the Day of National Unity.

Since Putin's return to the Kremlin in 2012, Russia has cracked down on nationalist leaders, many of whom are jailed or living in exile.