Putin critic Alexei Navalny held as thousands attend Russia protests

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been detained at home ahead of a planned unauthorised protest in Moscow, his wife says.

"Alexei has been arrested in the entrance to our block of flats," Yuliya Navalnaya wrote on Twitter, adding "our plans haven't changed".

Thousands of his supporters have heeded his call to protest against corruption.

OVD-Info, an NGO, says 121 people have been detained in Moscow and 137 in St Petersburg.

St Petersburg news website Fontanka.ru put the number of detainees there at 300.

There were smaller rallies in other Russian cities.

In a live broadcast by the Russian liberal TV channel Dozhd, protesters in St Petersburg could be heard shouting "shame" as they were detained by police. Among those arrested was Maxim Reznik, the city's legislative assembly deputy.

Prominent activist Daniil Ken said he was arrested as he left his home in St Petersburg. He urged people to join a rally at the city's Champ de Mars square. "Go for me, please!" he tweeted. He has since been released.

Police earlier detained several people at demonstrations in the cities of Vladivostok, Blagoveshchensk and Kazan.

Mr Navalny, who intends to stand for the Russian presidency next year, had been due to attend the unauthorised rally in central Moscow on Monday. 

He was earlier granted permission to hold a rally at Sakharova Avenue but changed the location - without permission - on the eve of the demonstration to Tverskaya Street, near the Kremlin.

One of the groups participating in the Moscow rally, which is over government plans to demolish Soviet-era apartment blocks in the city, said it would hold its protest on Sakharova Avenue as planned.

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Permission has been granted for demonstrations in 169 locations across the country, some of which will be broadcast live on the Navalny Live YouTube channel. The main rallies are expected to be in St Petersburg and Moscow.

The protests coincide with a series of official events - including festivals, concerts and military enactments - due to take place across the country to mark Russia Day, the national holiday dedicated to the 1990 declaration of sovereignty.

The BBC's Moscow correspondent, Steve Rosenberg, earlier shared images on Twitter of an historical military reconstruction in Tverskaya Street, the location of Mr Navalny's unauthorised demonstration.

 BBC NEWS