REVOLTING

Nine-Year-Old Boy One of 300 Kids Arrested at Anti-Putin Protests

Russian state media says the young protesters were locked up after being “lured” into protesting against the jailing of Alexei Navalny.

Russia’s state media claimed hundreds of children—as young as nine—were arrested after being “lured” into taking part in nationwide protests against Vladimir Putin’s persecution of Alexei Navalny. Navalny, an opposition activist, was jailed on his return from Germany, where he had been treated for a Novichock poison attack almost certainly carried out by the FSB. The TASS media agency quoted an official who said two brothers aged 9 and 12 were among those who had been “lured into Navalny’s illegal demonstrations.” Since Navalny came back to Russia earlier this month, school students have joined growing street protests and acts of civil disobedience online—in one viral social media post a teenager replaced a portrait of Putin with Navalny’s face in her school.