“There were also cases when law enforcement officers exceeded their authority. By the way, a lot of work was done with them: if their actions did not fall under violation of the rights and freedoms of citizens, then they were limited to oral punishment, if they did, criminal cases were opened, ”said TASS Bondarev.

According to him, also many were punished disciplined or dismissed.

At the same time, the senator emphasized that, in general, the actions of the Russian Guard and the Ministry of Internal Affairs during the rallies in Moscow in July-August 2019 “were adequate to the events that took place there and the threats that arose there.”

Rallies not coordinated with the authorities, organized by unregistered candidates for deputies of the Moscow City Duma, took place in the capital on July 14, July 27 and August 3. The police detained a total of about 1.7 thousand people, and some of them subsequently opened criminal cases of riots and attacks on government officials.

On August 10, an agreed rally was held on Akademik Sakharov Avenue in the center of Moscow, in which about 20 thousand people took part. After the rally, the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported the detention of more than 130 people participating in an unauthorized rally.

One of the detainees that day, Daria Sosnovskaya, turned to the Investigative Committee with a statement accusing the police officer of having hit her in the stomach. Moscow police began checking after information appeared that the employee had hit the girl while being detained on an unauthorized rally.

The girl’s lawyer, Tatyana Molokanova, told RIA Novosti on February 14 that the police explained to Daria Sosnovskaya that the officer hit her in the stomach on an unauthorized rally on August 10 to prevent unlawful actions.

The defender explained that her client received a letter from the Internal Affairs Directorate in the Central Administrative District of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow (dated December 25, 2019).

In the letter, the head of the department of public order protection during mass events of the Internal Affairs Directorate for the Central Administrative District, Alexander Makhonin, writes that Sosnovskaya took part in an uncoordinated action, behaved "emotionally and aggressively." In his opinion, the girl saw that the policeman dropped the "baton" and reaches for it and took a wide step, "in time to step on the baton and the hand of the police officer."