Navalny: More than 200 held as court considers jailing Putin critic
image copyrightReutersRussian police have detained more than 200 people near a Moscow court which is considering whether to jail Putin critic Alexei Navalny.
Many riot police, including some on horses, are deployed outside the court.
The hearing is to decide whether to turn Mr Navalny's suspended sentence into an actual prison term.
He could face up to three and a half years, in a case that has sparked nationwide protests. He calls the embezzlement conviction fabricated.
The arrests were reported by the Russian OVD-Info monitoring group, which documents police activities, and by the Moscow Public Monitoring Commission (ONK), a human rights body.
Mr Navalny's return to Russia on 17 January triggered mass protests in support of him, many of them young Russians who have only ever experienced President Vladimir Putin's rule.
Mr Navalny has been accused of breaking probation rules which required him to report regularly to Russian police over the 2014 suspended sentence for embezzlement. His lawyers say it is absurd he is accused of breaching probation, as the authorities knew he was recovering in Berlin after a nerve agent attack that nearly killed him.
image copyrightEPAAddressing the court on Tuesday, Mr Navalny said: "I fell into a coma, then came round, left hospital, contacted my lawyer and sent you a document stating where I was... Of course I wasn't at home! What more could I do?"
Western diplomats are attending the hearing. The EU has condemned the mass arrests of Navalny supporters, and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell is to visit Moscow on Thursday for official talks.
Commenting on the court hearing, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said "we hope that such nonsense as linking the prospects of Russia-EU relations with the resident of a detention centre will not happen".
Just before the court hearing began, Mr Navalny praised his wife Yulia, who is attending in court. She was fined 20,000 roubles (£190; $260) on Monday for having joined the pro-Navalny protesters at an "unauthorised" rally.
"They said that you had seriously violated public order and were a bad girl. I'm proud of you," Mr Navalny said, quoted by Reuters news agency.
'Putin's palace'
Mr Navalny accuses Mr Putin of running an administration riddled with corruption, and recently released a YouTube video featuring an opulent Black Sea palace which, he alleged, was a Russian billionaires' gift to the president. More than 100 million people have watched it.
Some protesters on Sunday brandished gold-coloured toilet brushes, a symbol of their anger about the palace.
On Saturday Arkady Rotenberg, a billionaire businessman close to Mr Putin, said he owned the palace and had bought it two years ago.
The OVD-Info group said police detained more than 5,000 people at pro-Navalny protests in 86 cities across the country on Sunday. For a second weekend, crowds defied bitter cold and a massive deployment of riot police.
OVD-Info says it is an independent Russian media project, which gets crowdfunding in Russia and its donors include the Memorial human rights group and the European Commission.
image copyrightReutersMr Navalny is already serving a 30-day sentence in connection with the embezzlement case, which he denounces as politically motivated.
He spent five months recovering from the Novichok poisoning, an attack he blamed directly on President Putin. The Kremlin has denied any involvement, and disputes the expert conclusion that Novichok was used.
In recent days police have arrested many of Mr Navalny's top aides, who assist him in his Anti-Corruption Network (FBK).
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