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Putin opponents draw comparisons with 1991 coup

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Aug. 20, 2012, 10:39 a.m. |

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Russian opposition supporters hold a banner reading "Russia will be free!" during a commemorative event for the victims of the 1991 coup in central Moscow on Aug. 19. Russia held muted commemorations two decades after Soviet hardliners staged a coup against then Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev that precipitated the demise of the USSR, with the nation's two leaders making no comment on the anniversary.
© AFP

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MOSCOW (AP) — Russian opposition leaders have joined about 300 people who gathered in Moscow to remember three people who were killed during the failed Soviet coup more than two decades ago.

They drew a comparison between the Communist hardliners who tried to overthrow Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991 and the current Kremlin leadership under Vladimir Putin.

Alexei Navalny was among those who placed flowers Sunday on a memorial to the "defenders of Russian democracy" who died while resisting the coup. He told the crowd that "unfortunately a creeping coup has happened and some of the ideas that were pushed forward by the disgusting coup plotters have now been realized. Destroying the creeping coup is our goal."

Navalny has been one of the leaders of the anti-Putin protests.

 

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