The Moscow authorities have allowed a protest by the Russian opposition on February 4, which will pose a new challenge to Vladimir Putin a month ahead of presidential polls, officials said Thursday,- AFP reported.
The city hall has sanctioned a protest march south of the Moscow river mustering up to 50,000 people from midday to 3:00 pm local time (0800 to 1100 GMT), deputy Moscow mayor Alexander Gorbenko told the Interfax news agency.
"The city hall has agreed to one of the variants put forward (by the opposition) that is acceptable to both sides," he said.
The demonstration will follow two mass protests on December 10 and December 24 against the conduct of parliamentary elections that mustered tens of thousands of people and showed growing discontent with the rule of Putin.
The protest will see demonstrators march from Bolshaya Yakimanka street in the south of the centre of the Russian capital to Bolotnaya Square just opposite the Kremlin walls over the Moscow river.
It will come ahead of presidential elections on March 4 where Putin is standing for a third Kremlin term after his four year stint as prime minister, in defiance of opposition warnings he has been in power too long.
One of the organizers of the new protest meeting, journalist Sergei Parkhomenko, described the arrangements as a "compromise" that would be acceptable both to the opposition and the city authorities.
He told Interfax the date of the protest was "symbolic" as it also would come two months after the December 4 parliamentary elections that sparked the mass rallies that have smashed the taboo against protests in Putin's Russia.
