adminarrest of more than 600 demonstrators in Moscow and Saint Petersburg on Monday after Putin’s triumph in presidential elections.
“Troubling to watch arrests of peaceful demonstrators at Pushkin Square,” McFaul tweeted shortly after helmeted riot police moved in to break up the rally
“Freedom of assembly and freedom of speech are universal values,” he said.
McFaul was the architect of US President Barack Obama’s “reset” in ties with the more reform-minded outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev.
But he vexed Moscow on his arrival in January by immediately meeting with top anti-Putin leaders.
The Russian foreign ministry’s response to Twitter user @McFaul was quick and biting.
“The police on Pushkin Square were many times more humane that what we witnessed with the dispersal of the Occupy Wall Street protests and the tent cities in Europe,” the foreign ministry said.
McFaul also received an angry reply from Arkady Dvorkovich — the economic adviser of Medvedev.
“And the detention of protesters in the US — is this normal?” Dvorkovich asked.
Putin’s return to the post he held in 2000-2008 was preceded by his angry accusation that the US State Department helped incite the protests in a bid to complicate his return.
The former KGB agent sparred with the United States through most of his first two terms as president and had been one of Russia’s strongest critics of the NATO-led campaign in Libya. — AFP.
Online Reporter
- Herald
- July 30, 2026
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