30 March 2017, 13:31 GMT
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On Sunday, Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny organized an anti-corruption rally without the permission of Moscow authorities in the Russian capital, which was attended by approximately 8,000 people, with over 600 people, including Navalny himself, being detained by police. Similar rallies also took place in St. Petersburg, Voronezh, Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, as well as several other cities across Russia. On Monday, the press service of the Russian Interior Ministry told Sputnik that the majority of the detained participants of the rally had already been released.
"I do not know about the presence of any information of this kind. I have never heard any data that would support such a version," Peskov said when asked whether the Kremlin believes that unauthorized protests were "stoked from outside, that is, from abroad."
Following the rally, Western countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States and France, as well as other international institutions, such as the Council of Europe, expressed concerns over the treatment of the protesters and called on Moscow to release those that had been detained.
On Monday, Peskov said that Moscow cannot agree with or take the statements in to account, because of the unauthorized nature of the rallies in Russia.
