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Members of the police arrest a participant in the demonstration in Moscow on 3 August 2019. REUTERS / Tatyana Makeyeva

In Moscow, the opposition remains mobilized, despite arrests and police pressure. Several thousand people marched on Saturday in the center of the Russian capital to demand "free elections". Prohibited event like last week, which resulted in hundreds of arrests.

With our correspondent in Moscow, Daniel Vallot

As during the demonstration of July 27, it is a massive police device that has been deployed by the authorities. Throughout the route chosen by the opposition, hundreds of riot police, and dozens of white and blue buses, which will transport to the police stations, arrested protesters .

The authorities have also made it virtually impossible to connect to the internet on mobile phones near meeting points. Objective: to prevent the demonstrators from communicating with each other and to give themselves alternative meeting points as was the case last week after the dispersal of the main gathering.

The protest movement which is now deprived of all its leaders. Only one opposition figure had not yet been detained. Lioubov Sobol was arrested at midday while she was preparing to go to one of the gathering places.