2011–2012 Russian protests

2011–13 Russian protests
Part of Russian opposition protests rallies: Dissenters' Marches (2005–2008), Russian Marches, Strategy-31 (since 2009), etc.
Rally at the Academician Sakharov Avenue, Moscow, 24 December 2011
Date	4 December 2011 – 18 July 2013
Location	Russia
Causes	Fraudulent elections Corruption
Goals	Fair elections ("For Fair Elections" protests) Preventing colour revolution ("anti-Orange" protests) Immediate release of all political prisoners Announcement of the elections were rigged and therefore cancellation of their results Resignation of Churov and an investigation of its activities, the investigation of all available, according to the opposition, violations and falsifications, the punishment of perpetrators. Registration of opposition parties, the adoption of a democratic law on political parties and elections Implementation of the new open and fair elections
Methods	Demonstrations, Internet activism
Result	More coverage of the opposition on TV Pre-planned liberal electoral reform carried on faster Clamp-down on opposition rallies with increased fines
Parties to the civil conflict
Russian opposition Anarchists Communists Greens Labor unions LGBT activists Liberals Libertarians National Bolsheviks Socialists Students Russian government MVD Police of Russia Russian Internal Troops OMON Pro-government protesters Nashi
Lead figures
Eduard Limonov Alexei Navalny Boris Nemtsov Sergei Udaltsov Garry Kasparov Mikhail Kasyanov Vladimir Ryzhkov Grigory Yavlinsky Vladimir Putin Dmitry Medvedev Sergey Kurginyan Maksim Shevchenko Mikhail Leontyev
Number
"For Fair Elections" 25,000 per police, 60,000 per organizers (Moscow, 10 December 2011) 28,000 per police, 120,000 per organizers (Moscow, 24 December 2011) 36,000 per police, 160,000 per organizers (Moscow, 4 February 2012) "Anti-Orange" 500 per media, 5,000 per organisers (Moscow, 24 December 2011) 138,000 per police (Moscow, 4 February 2012) 50,000 (the rest of the country, 4 February 2012) Pro-Putin rallies 130,000 per police (Moscow, 23 February 2012) 110,000 per police (Moscow, 4 March 2012)
Casualties
Arrested	over 1,000 (almost all on the first day, some more arrests on the post-2012 election protests)

Russian opposition

Russian government

Pro-government protesters

"For Fair Elections"

"Anti-Orange"

Pro-Putin rallies

The 2011–13 Russian protests (which some English language media referred to as the Snow Revolution) began in 2011 (as protests against the 2011 Russian legislative election results) and continued into 2012 and 2013. The protests were motivated by claims by Russian and foreign journalists, political activists and members of the public that the election process was flawed. The Central Election Commission of Russia stated that only 11.5% of official reports of fraud could be confirmed as true.

On 10 December 2011, after a week of small-scale demonstrations, Russia saw some of the biggest protests in Moscow since the 1990s. The focus of the protests have been the ruling party, United Russia, and its leader Vladimir Putin, the current president, previous prime minister, and previous two-term president, who announced his intention to run again for President in 2012. Another round of large protests took place on 24 December 2011. These protests were named "For Fair Elections" (Russian: За честные выборы) and their organizers set up the movement of the same name. By this time, the "For Fair Elections" protesters had coalesced into five main points: freedom for political prisoners; annulment of the election results; the resignation of Vladimir Churov (head of the election commission) and the opening of an official investigation into vote fraud; registration of opposition parties and new democratic legislation on parties and elections, as well as new democratic and open elections.