Russia protesters try new tactics to pressure Putin

RUSSIA: A mass walk led by writers, camping out at night in the city, cat-and-mouse games with the police: Russia's protest movement is trying out novel tactics to keep up pressure on Vladimir Putin.

Political slogans for the moment have been dropped in favour of tea-drinking and discussions in the open air as the protestors seek to test how far the authorities are prepared to let them use their right to assembly.

Police have twice roughly broken up sit-in protests in the centre of Moscow, an action that would have been unthinkable in the Russian capital before the first mass protests sparked by December's parliamentary elections.

But activists picked up the pieces and moved to a new locale, congregating on park benches even after police detained dozens, took the generator that powered the Wi-Fi network, and reportedly confiscated the donation box.

The general feeling of being fed-up with the current political regime and elections widely believed to be fraudulent is not going away, one of the camp's core organisers Yelena Nadezhkina told AFP on a recent evening.

A regular of environmental protests who lived in a camp opposed to logging in a Moscow region forest, Nadezhkina said the sit-in participants don't follow opposition leaders and come from all over the political spectrum.

"Our goal is to show that society can organise without a dictator," she said. "The authorities have taken over our country and they're not letting people live in peace." The fluid Internet-based protest is a test for Vladimir Putin, who would be taking a major risk if he underestimates the potential of an increasingly creative opposition over his six year term. Ten thousand people turned up Sunday after detective novelist and opposition supporter Boris Akunin wrote on his blog that he planned to stroll along Moscow's famous boulevard ring with several other writers to see if he was arrested. AFP