Vladimir Putin's security forces detained over 1,300 civilians in Russia on Wednesday after protests broke out in the country, denouncing the President's decision of partial mobilization, according to an independent Russian human rights group.
What Happened: Thousands of people in Russia protested in the streets against the Kremlin, hours after Putin ordered the country's first military draft since the Second World War, calling up military reservists into the armed forces, according to the OVD-Info protest monitoring group.
The information collated by the group from 38 Russian cities showed that more than 1,311 people were arrested by late evening, of which at least 502 were from Moscow and 524 from St Petersburg, Russia's second most populous city.
In a statement to Russian news agencies, Interior Ministry official Irina Volk said officers had cut short attempts to stage what it called small protests, Reuters reported.
"In a number of regions, there were attempts to stage unauthorized actions, which brought together an extremely small number of participants," Volk said. "These were all stopped. And those persons who violated laws were detained and taken to police stations for investigation and to establish their responsibility."
Meanwhile, the national security agency of Finland, the country that shares a 1,340-kilometre-long border with Russia, said the traffic from Putin's country had "intensified" last night. "The number clearly has picked up," the Finnish border guard's head of international affairs, Matti Pitkaniitty, told Reuters.
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