Putin critic detained after breaking house arrest to join Red Square rally

Leading anti-Kremlin figure Alexei Navalny defied authorities Tuesday, breaking house arrest to briefly join thousands of supporters in Moscow's Red Square protesting his conviction and his brother's.

The demonstration came just hours after a Russian court gave him a suspended sentence for embezzling money, in a case widely seen as a political vendetta against the anti-corruption campaigner and foe of President Vladimir Putin. Navalny's brother, Oleg Navalny, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

Protesters chanted, "We are the power" and "You won't be able to jail us all" at the rally, while others shouted slogans of support for Ukraine, which saw its Crimean Peninsula annexed by Russia in March and has faced a pro-Moscow insurgency in the east.

Meanwhile, Alexei Navalny tweeted images of himself on the way to the protest, in defiance of his sentence conditions. Television footage later showed the opposition leader being detained in Red Square by police. He was later driven home by authorities.

Officials did not give permission for the protest, and arrests were expected. Some activists posted on Twitter that a large police presence awaited them in Red Square.

Navalny posted a message on Twitter confirming that he had been detained but urged protesters to remain at the demonstration. But police in riot gear pushed his supporters back and cleared the square by Tuesday evening. Some of the estimated several thousand protesters were taken away by police; it is unclear if they were arrested or simply detained.

The U.S. State Department called the sentencing and incarceration of the Navalnys a "disturbing development designed to punish and deter political activism." Charges against the brothers were not substantiated during the trial, European Union spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said.

Slideshow: Verdict in trial of Navalny and his brother sparks unauthorized protest

Three years ago, Navalny led mass protests against President Vladimir Putin, when tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Moscow and St. Petersburg to protest corruption in the government and Putin's inner circle. A crackdown on those who dissented followed the protests, with hundreds of people arrested and dozens prosecuted.

Opposition figures say that imprisoning Navalny risked a new wave of protests and that it was decided to punish him by incarcerating his brother instead.

The Navalnys were accused of stealing 30 million rubles, about $500,000 at the current exchange rate, from two firms, including an affiliate of the French cosmetics company Yves Rocher from 2008 to 2012.

Tuesday's ruling comes as a relief for Alexei Navalny's supporters after prosecutors sought a 10-year prison sentence for him. The Kremlin has denied allegations that it uses the courts to persecute opponents.

Officials have taken few steps to investigate Navalny's corruption allegations. He claimed there was mass embezzlement, including in the state bank VTB and pipeline monopoly Transneft, run by close allies of Putin.

"Aren't you ashamed of what you are doing?" Navalny asked the court and Judge Yelena Korobchenko. "Why are you putting him [Oleg] in prison? To punish me even harder?"

Alexei Navalny was given a suspended five-year prison sentence for a separate conviction last year, which critics also called a sham.

"The authorities are torturing and destroying relatives of their political opponents. This regime doesn't deserve to exist. It must be destroyed," Navalny told reporters outside the court as he was escorted to a car for prisoners.

Russian state television channels did not cover the sentencing or mentioned it very briefly, while most Russian print media and radio stations had it among their top stories.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment and said the president would find out about the verdict from media.

Putin's popularity has soared over the past year after Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's largely Russian-speaking Crimea and the Kremlin's support of secessionists in eastern Ukraine, which led to the worst standoff with the West since the end of the Cold War. This has eroded the popularity of opposition leaders such as Navalny.

However, falling oil prices and Western sanctions on Russia over Ukraine have triggered a deep economic crisis, a ruble devaluation and double-digit inflation, threatening Putin's reputation for safeguarding Russian prosperity.

Former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, one of the most respected Russian economists in the West, said this month Russia was facing a full-fledged crisis that could lead to mass protests next year.

"The authorities could have easily put Navalny in jail. But they understand that it would have led to a large wave of protests. So they will torture him through other means," economist and former central banker turned opposition figure Sergei Aleksashenko told independent television channel Dozhd.

Lawyers for Oleg Navalny said they didn't know where he would be sent to serve his prison term. Putin critic and billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky served his 10-year sentence in penal colonies from northern Russia to eastern Siberia.

Al Jazeera and wire services