Russian police arrest more than 100 Navalny supporters, group says

FILE PHOTO: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is seen on a screen via a video link from the IK-2 corrective penal colony in Pokrov during a court hearing to consider an appeal against his prison sentence in Moscow, Russia May 24, 2022. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina

(Reuters) - Russian police on Sunday arrested more than 100 people who had taken to the streets to mark the 47th birthday of Alexei Navalny, Russia's most prominent opposition leader, a protest monitoring group said.

OVD-Info said in a statement that 109 people had been detained in 23 cities as of 10:42 p.m. Moscow time (1942 GMT). Authorities have clamped down heavily on signs of dissent since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and in most cities, only a handful of people were held.