Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday angrily dismissed protests against his regime as “provocations” and said anyone who took part in unsanctioned street rallies against the Kremlin should expect a “whack on the head.”
Using characteristic street language, Putin derided Russia’s opposition as a group of publicity-seeking malcontents and said they had only themselves to blame if they were on the receiving end of police brutality during anti-government meetings.
Putin’s scathing remarks in an interview with the Kommersant newspaper come before protests inside Russia yesterday as well as demonstrations against the Russian government in several cities internationally.
Anti-Putin rallies were due to take place for the first time outside the Russian consulate in Kensington Palace Gardens in London, and in New York, Helsinki, Berlin and Tel Aviv.
For the past eight months Russia’s small but vociferous opposition has held rallies in Moscow and St Petersburg on the 31st of each month. Organizers said they would go ahead with a planned rally in central Moscow’s Triumfalnaya square yesterday, despite the likelihood of arrest by riot police who had violently broken up previous gatherings.
Speaking while driving a Lada on a road trip over the weekend in Russia’s far east, Putin said Russians needed to get permission before they could take to the streets.
“You’ve got it? Go and march. If not, you don’t have the right. Go to a rally without permission and you get a whack on the bonce. It’s that simple,” he said.
Putin said the demonstrators invited the Western media along and “poured red paint on their heads” to give the Kremlin a bad name. He said that in London, demonstrators who protested without permission also got a “whack on the nut.”
Putin made his comments to Andrey Kolesnikov, Kommersant’s special correspondent and Russia’s best-known print journalist, who traveled with him along a new federal highway between Khabarovsk and Chita.
At one point Putin was forced to stop after stones got stuck in the wheels of his sporting Lada Kalina, Kolesnikov wrote.
Writing on his blog on Monday, opposition leader Boris Nemtsov said the interview revealed Putin to be “mendacious, ignorant and spiteful.”
He poured scorn on Putin’s claim that he had never heard of the liberal rock star Yuri Shevchuk, who has led recent rallies strumming his guitar.
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