Russian police yesterday broke up protests in Moscow and Saint Petersburg against Vladimir Putin’s victory in presidential polls, roughly arresting hundreds of people, AFP correspondents said.

People were calm but the police moved in, kicking people, tearing their clothes

Police moved in to disperse a protest at Pushkin Square in central Moscow, after hundreds of people refused to leave the venue at the end of a larger rally earlier.

Activists who installed themselves on top of a fountain in the square were pulled off by their legs, falling onto the ground, and dragged by hands and feet. “Disgrace!” some people shouted.

Riot police cleared the square, moving away even bystanders that had not been at the rally, an AFP correspondent said from the scene. “Power to millions, not to the police!” and “Russia without Putin!” people shouted.

Among those arrested were Russian anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny and two fellow opposition leaders Sergei Udaltsov and Ilya Yashin. Those detained were dragged away by the police into waiting vans. “Hello to everyone from the police van,” Mr Navalny wrote on Twitter after his arrest.

“People were calm, but at some point police started moving in, kicking people, tearing their clothes,” Mr Yashin told independent Dozhd TV from the police van by phone. “There was no aggression on our part.”

Moscow police also roughly arrested dozens of protesters at a separate unsanctioned event near the central election commission, including the leader of the Other Russia radical opposition group Eduard Limonov.

The Interfax news agency quoted a police source as saying that around 150 people were detained at the actions in Moscow but comments posted on social networks by activists suggested the final figure could be even higher.

Ilya Ponomaryev, one of the few deputies in the Russian Parliament to support the protest movement, told Interfax that as many as 1,000 people could have been arrested in the city.