Anti-Putin march draws thousands in his home city

Russian protest leader Alexei Navalny led thousands through the streets of Vladimir Putin's native city Saturday demonstrating against his likely return to the Kremlin in March 4 polls. The demonstration was called a day before thousands more plan to link hands around Moscow in a symbolic show of frustration with the ex-KGB spy's decision to seek a third presidential term after dominating Russia for 12 years.
"The event on March 4 cannot be called an election," Navalny told reporters before heading to the central Moscow Station in Saint Petersburg for the protest. "People should not be looking at it as an election but as an opportunity to create as much stress for the authorities as possible ... by voting for anyone but Putin," Navalny said.
Thousands then snaked their way along the city's scenic embankments chanting "Russia without Putin" and "Putin is a thief" - a cry that would have been unimaginable just months ago - while police helicopters circled overhead. "I do not want our president to be a thief. I do not want our president to be a coward," Navalny later shouted down from a rally stage to a screaming crowd that the local zaks.ru news agency estimated at 7,000.
The 35-year-old Navalny has gained prominence among Russia's Internet-savvy youth for waging a tireless web campaign to expose state corruption. He is now one of the most recognised protest figures and drew some of the loudest cheers at a mass January rally in Moscow when he threatened to lead one million people in a march on Putin's government White House. Navalny has also done little to hide aspirations to run for president one day.
"Every person involved in politics has political ambitions. My ambitions stretch as far as my voters can take me," Navalny said Saturday. Police in both Saint Petersburg, Russia's former tsarist capital, and Moscow had refused to sanction such events for much of the past decade as Putin established a tight regime under which the state grabbed control of various aspects of society. But that policy changed when angry protests began to shake major cities following December 5 parliamentary elections in which the ruling party managed to barely hang on to its majority of seats in a fraud-tainted poll.