Baton-wielding riot police have broken up anti-corruption protests and detained hundreds of demonstrators, including opposition leader Alexei Navalny, in cities across Russia.
Mr Navalny is a strong critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin and thousands of people heeded his call to take to the streets.
SFX of protests
It was the sound of Russian protesters chanting for freedom at a rally organised by opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
The aim was to repeat the nationwide protests that rattled Russian authorities three months ago.
Mr Navalny, mounting a long-shot bid to unseat President Vladimir Putin in an election next year, had called for mass protests in Moscow and other cities against official corruption.
He has now been arrested and jailed for 30 days for staging unsanctioned protests as the Kremlin dismisses his corruption allegations and accuses him of irresponsibly stirring unrest.
This protester echoed the views of many of those attending the demonstrations, saying corruption in the country is endemic.
(Russian, then translated:) "I'm here, first of all, because of the corruption in Russia, which is reaching huge proportions. While, in Iceland, the prime minister gets dismissed because of being caught as a result of the Panama Papers, our prime minister is caught in such big corruption cases and he doesn't go anywhere. This is very strange. It's a dead end for the country's development." (Russian ...)
The non-profit monitoring group OVD-Info says preliminary figures show more than 800 people have been detained in Moscow, while the Interior Ministry says 500.
The scale of the latest protests suggest Mr Navalny has maintained his campaign's momentum despite more than a thousand people being arrested after the protests in March.
And while the protests appear to attract mainly younger people, this 54-year-old woman, Loshkina, says she attended to show her support for the opposition.
(Russian, then translated:) "I'm happy we are together, the generations. The youth rose, finally, against this mayhem that happens, that clamps the country more and more, doesn't let us breathe, neither old people nor young ones." (Russian ...)
The protests are an attempt to maintain the rare domestic pressure on Mr Putin, expected to run for -- and win -- re-election next year.
The Interior Ministry says the turnout at the Moscow protest was about 4,500, but reporters on the scene estimated the turnout in the low tens of thousands.
Authorities in the capital say the protest was illegal, and they brought in riot police to break it up.
The police used pepper spray and batons, detaining people and bundling them onto buses.
In the United States, White House spokesman Sean Spicer says the US government condemns Russia's crackdown on the protesters.
"The United States strongly condemns the detention of hundreds of peaceful protesters throughout Russia that happened on June 12th. Detaining peaceful protesters, human-rights observers and journalists is an affront to core Democratic values. The United States will monitor the situation, and we will call on the government of Russia to immediately release all peaceful protesters."
State media has ignored the demonstrations, broadcasting Soviet-style coverage of Mr Putin handing out state awards instead.
Mr Navalny brought thousands onto the streets in cities across Russia in March, the largest such protests since a wave of anti-Kremlin demonstrations in 2012.
He was fined and jailed for 15 days for his role in those protests.
