A wave of opposition rallies that spread across Russia will go down after the presidential elections on March 4, presidential chief of staff Sergei Ivanov said on Sunday.
The protest rallies will continue “till the first round of the presidential polls,” Ivanov told RIA Novosti, adding that after March 4 the protests will go down.
He also said that the ongoing meetings are the signs of people’s diverse political views.
Tens of thousands of protesters marched and rallied across Russia on Saturday, with their key demands being Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s resignation and fair elections.
Across the capital, Putin supporters also rallied to urge an end to “the Orange Revolution,” a reference to the uprisings that saw regime change in the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia almost a decade ago.
The protest came exactly a month before the March 4 presidential polls in which Putin, 59, is to seek a third stint in the Kremlin. He was barred by the Constitution from standing for a third consecutive term in 2008 and handed over power to his hand-picked successor Dmitry Medvedev.