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Putin Contends Clinton Incited Unrest Over Vote

Police officers patrolled a calm Red Square in Moscow on Thursday. Government opponents, angry over election fraud reports, are planning a rally for Saturday.Credit...James Hill for The New York Times

MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin accused Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday of inciting unrest in Russia, as he grappled with the prospect of large-scale political protest for the first time in his more than decade-long rule.

In a rare personal accusation, Mr. Putin said Mrs. Clinton had sent “a signal” to “some actors in our country” after Sunday’s parliamentary elections, which were condemned as fraudulent by both international and Russian observers. Anger over the elections prompted a demonstration in which thousands chanted “Putin is a thief” and “Russia without Putin,” a development that has deeply unnerved the Kremlin.

Speaking to political allies as he announced the formation of his presidential campaign, Mr. Putin said that hundreds of millions of dollars in “foreign money” was being used to influence Russian politics, and that Mrs. Clinton had personally spurred protesters to action. The comments indicate a breakdown in the Obama administration’s sputtering effort to “reset” the relationship between the United States and Russia.

“I looked at the first reaction of our U.S. partners,” Mr. Putin said. “The first thing that the secretary of state did was say that they were not honest and not fair, but she had not even yet received the material from the observers.”

“She set the tone for some actors in our country and gave them a signal,” Mr. Putin continued. “They heard the signal and with the support of the U.S. State Department began active work.”

Mr. Putin has struggled to regain his footing after his party, United Russia, suffered big losses in the elections on Sunday. The party’s poor showing was followed by an unusual public outcry — first over the ballot tampering and in recent days over the arrests of hundreds of demonstrators who have taken to the streets in Moscow and other cities to complain.

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Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia spoke in Moscow on Thursday.Credit...Alexey Druzhinin/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Deeply wary of the forces of unrest that unleashed the Arab Spring, the Russian authorities have moved swiftly to contain the protests, deploying battalions of riot police officers and legions of pro-government young people to occupy public squares in Moscow and drown out the opposition.

Government opponents are mobilizing a huge rally planned for Saturday in Moscow, and by Thursday evening more than 32,000 people had indicated on a Facebook page that they would gather near the Kremlin. Close to midnight, the Moscow city government granted a permit for a crowd of 30,000. Even if half that number showed up, the political protest would be the largest since the fall of the Soviet Union.

“The protest mood is very widespread,” said Sergei A. Markov, a Kremlin-connected political analyst and former United Russia lawmaker. “Especially in Moscow and St. Petersburg, people are broadly convinced that there was falsification.” Mr. Markov said the Kremlin was not likely to address the protesters’ complaints.

“The authorities will attempt to conduct themselves with society as a parent would a child who is crying and demanding some kind of toy,” he said. “It is not correct to go out and buy the child a toy, but rather distract him with something else.

“I think this will work,” Mr. Markov said. “For now, trust in Putin is sufficiently high. Though it is falling. A month ago, people would not have held Putin accountable for falsification. Today, he is being held responsible for it by more and more people.”

All day on Thursday, protest organizers negotiated to secure permission for the event from the Moscow authorities, who proposed that it be relocated to Bolotny Square, an island connected to the Kremlin by bridges. A police spokesman released a statement in response to a message that had gone out over social networks stating, “If 5,000 people go out on the street, they will be dispersed; if 50,000 go out, the police will stand silently; and if 500,000 go out, then the police will take their side.”

The police spokesman told the Interfax news agency: “For us it makes no difference whether 5 people violate the law or 5,000. We will just use different means to disperse the violators.”

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December 8, 2011 - In a strikingly personal tone, Russia's Prime Minister accuses Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of inciting election protests.

Potential demonstrators adopted a white ribbon as a symbol of what is, as yet, an inchoate movement made up largely of first-time activists. Thousands of Muscovites passed around a memorandum urging participants to refrain from violence: “People, our strength is in the fact that there are many of us and the truth is on our side. We do not want to fight anyone, and we will not. Calm those who are aggressive. SMILE AT PEOPLE.”

Many middle-class Muscovites seemed to identify this week as a watershed moment when accumulated frustration over Mr. Putin’s long rule suddenly began to manifest itself as action. Two prominent rights advocates, Irina Yasina and Svetlana Sorokina, announced on Thursday that they were withdrawing from a human rights council led by President Dmitri A. Medvedev, saying that three years of work with the authorities had convinced them that “respect for the rights and freedoms of citizens is not a priority activity of the Russian president and his team.”

Writing on her blog, Mrs. Yasina said, “The falsification of the results of parliamentary elections, which did not admit the candidates whom we would have liked to vote for, was simply the last straw.”

Mr. Putin’s assertion that Mrs. Clinton had prejudged Sunday’s vote seemed unfounded. Her first remarks were made on Monday, after a scathing preliminary report was released by monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The observers documented deep structural problems as well as blatant stuffing of ballot boxes, in some cases in plain sight.

Mrs. Clinton, traveling in Europe, did not address Mr. Putin directly on Thursday and said Washington valued the bilateral relationship.

“At the same time, the United States and many others around the world have a strong commitment to democracy and human rights,” she continued. “It’s part of who we are. It’s our values. And we expressed concerns that we thought were well founded about the conduct of the elections. And we are supportive of the rights and aspirations of the Russian people to be able to make progress and to realize a better future for themselves, and we hope to see that unfold in the years ahead.”

The White House on Thursday reiterated its concerns. “When rights are violated in Russia or another country, we speak out,” said Jay Carney, the White House press secretary.

Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting from Brussels, and Michael Schwirtz from Moscow.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Putin Contends Clinton Incited Russian Unrest. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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