Скачать или смотреть Thousands join in anti-Putin protest, Prokhorov comment

(4 Feb 2012) SHOTLIST
1. Mid of demonstration with a banner reading (Russian) "Freedom for political prisoners"
2. Protest banner reading (Ukrainian) "KGB bourgeois, Putin count (votes)!"
3. Wide of demonstration
4. Close of banner: (Russian) "Stop fooling us" on one side and on the other side "winter, frost, botox does not warm you" ('Botox' being the nickname some opponents gave to Putin after his purported plastic surgery)
5. Wide of demonstration
6. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Sergey Udaltsov, leader of opposition movement 'Left Front':
"People have woken up. Russia has radically changed after December 4th's dishonest elections. People started to feel that they are citizens and that many things depend on them, that there is a need to obtain real change from the authorities and to put these authorities under the control of the people."
7. Wide of front line of demonstration
8. Close of same
9. Mid of demonstrator with a Putin sticker on his chest reading (Russian) "Enough stealing and to lying!"
10. Close of sticker
11. Mid of Mikhail Prokhorov, candidate for presidency, walking towards camera
12. Wide of Prokhorov talking to his supporters and media before start of rally
13. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Mikhail Prokhorov, candidate for presidency:
"I will change the way our government turns toward the people. It will be with its face, not another part (of the body). And I will make our country a place where one wants to live and where we can see a future for our children."
14. Mid of Prokhorov's supporters
15. Close up of supporters
16. Mid of men preparing banner with portrait of Prokhorov
STORYLINE
Tens of thousands of Russians flooded downtown Moscow on Saturday to demand an end to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's rule, casting a strong challenge to his bid to reclaim the presidency in March.
Protesters wearing white ribbons and holding placards demanding free elections marched to Bolotnaya Square, across the river from the Kremlin, where a rally will be held.
Saturday's crowd appeared to be even bigger than two similar rallies held in December, despite temperatures plunging to minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit).
The previous rallies - the second of which drew 120,000 people, according to organisers - were the biggest in Russia since the protests 20 years ago that paved the way to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The authorities have sanctioned Saturday's march, even though they had rejected the organisers' earlier request to gather just outside the Kremlin.
"People have woken up. Russia has radically changed after December 4th's dishonest elections," said Sergei Udaltsov, a perennial opposition figure and leader of the 'Left Front' movement.
Another opposition figure, Mikhail Prokhorov, arrived to canvass support at the rally.
Prokhorov has avoided directly criticising Putin, and many believe the Kremlin approved his candidacy in the hope that it would provide a safe channel for opposition
votes.
"I will make our country a place where one wants to live and where we can see a future for our children," said Prokhorov.
The protests in December were triggered by evidence of fraud in favour of Putin's party in December's parliamentary election.

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