Speaking to Gazeta.ru, former Deputy Prime Minister and co-leader of the Solidarity opposition movement Boris Nemtsov said that the offer came several days ago from Vladislav Surkov, a primary Kremlin ideologist and highly influential aid to both the president and prime minister. Nemtsov refrained from specifying precisely to whom the proposition was made, but reports cite that it was to the “moderate” wing of the Russian opposition. Nemtsov denied that Surkov made the proposal directly to him, as some sources were reporting.

Left Front opposition leader Sergei Udaltsov expressed certainty that the Kremlin met with representatives from Solidarity, “since the Kremlin considers them to be moderate figures.”

According to Limonov himself, the offer was made both to Nemtsov and noted human rights advocate Lev Ponomarev, who heads the organization For Human Rights and is also part of Solidarity’s leadership. “At first they confirmed it. Then, clearly, they began to shy away – because now they have connections in the Kremlin,” he said.

Limonov, whose National Bolshevik Party is officially banned by the Russian government, characterized the proposal by the presidential administration as “the arrogance of a government that doesn’t want to give into Limonov.” He added that he has no intention of giving up his post as Strategy 31 organizer: “You cannot make concessions to the government: today they’re asking to sacrifice Limonov, but tomorrow it’ll be Limonov’s children.”

Meanwhile, the Kremlin denied the existence of any contact with the opposition at all. One high-level presidential representative, speaking under condition of anonymity to Gazeta.ru, said that he had no knowledge of any such negotiations.

In any case, opposition leaders are categorically refusing to abandon Limonov.

“I think the proposal is obscene,” Nemtsov said, noting that Limonov and his supporters had participated in Strategy 31 since the very beginning in July 2009. “And although it’s now a shared event, nobody has the right to start colluding with the government in this regard,” he concluded.

Vsevolod Chernozub, co-chairman of the Moscow branch of Solidarity, commented that the Kremlin’s proposal “reflects the cop-like and Chekist style of thinking of the current government.”

Strategy 31’s organizational committee has routinely consisted of Limonov, former Soviet dissident and Moscow Helsinki Group head Lyudmila Alexeyeva, and Left Front representative Konstantin Kosyakin. The three have applied to the Moscow mayor’s office for official sanction on seven separate occasions – on each month with a 31st date – and have been denied every time.

Alexeyeva also said that she had no plans to exclude Limonov for the upcoming rally on July 31. “I’m in favor of holding consultations with the Moscow government, as is required by law. Like always, three representatives of the event will hold these consultations,” she told Gazeta.ru.

Limonov added that, as a Strategy 31 organizer, he is currently participating in mediation procedures with Russian Human Rights Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin and Moscow Human Rights Ombudsman Aleksandr Muzykantsky. Their most recent session was held on June 1, one day after police violently broke up May’s Strategy 31 rally. During that meeting, said Limonov, a different proposition was made: “The July 31 event could be held on Pushkin Square, and then as a reward they would supposedly give us Triumfalnaya [the next month], and the next time again on Pushkin, and so on,” he explained. “But I said that this was unacceptable to us: we aren’t migrant workers who can be driven back and forth.”

The Kremlin offer comes two weeks after Limonov announced the creation of a political party based on the Other Russia opposition coalition and his intentions to lead the party in upcoming parliamentary elections. Reports about the Kremlin proposal itself come on the same day as the pro-Kremlin youth organization Young Guard announced that they have been denied sanction by the Moscow authorities to hold an event on Triumfalnaya Square on July 31 – the same date and place where the Strategy 31 rally is planned to be held. A representative from the Moscow regional government told Gazeta.ru that a three-day automobile festival has been planned for the last weekend in July on Triumfalnaya Square.

The leadership of Young Russia confirmed that they had been denied sanction for their event, and also expressed a great deal of disbelief. As has been the pattern until now, Strategy 31 opposition leaders are continually denied sanction for their own rallies, with one commonly-given excuse being that pro-Kremlin youth groups have already applied to use the same space at the same time.

Dmitri Peskov, press secretary for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, said that the prime minister was aware of Monday’s events, but stressed that the rally was not held in a location sanctioned by the Moscow city government.

“The prime minister, of course, knows about the demonstration. He knows, in particular, where it was given permission to be held and where it was actually held,” said Peskov.

Putin made a guarded statement last week that protests should always be allowed if their participants follow the law, after being confronted about the issue by a Kremlin-critical rock musician. But as the Moscow Times points out:

City officials banned the rally on Triumfalnaya Ploshchad, saying an authorized pro-Kremlin rally was already scheduled to take place instead.

Preventing unwanted public gatherings by holding official rallies is a well-known tactic. In his 2000 book of interviews, “From the First Person. Conversations with Vladimir Putin,” Putin admitted to using it himself when working in the St. Petersburg administration in the 1990s.

When asked what the prime minister thought about the actions of the police – which included detaining up to 170 people, beating dozens of them, holding them for hours in buses that were more than 95°F, shattering one man’s arm, and manhandling a World War II veteran – Peskov declined to comment.

Any discussion of the incident was blocked in the State Duma on Wednesday by United Russia, the country’s leading political party headed by Vladimir Putin. Communist Party Deputy Sergei Obukhov tried to raise the issue but was shot down by First Deputy Speaker Oleg Morozov, who condemned him for giving an unsanctioned presentation.

Meanwhile, Moscow Human Rights Ombudsman Aleksandr Muzykantsky said that he takes issue with the fact that youth activists routinely hold events on Triumfalnaya Square on the 31st of every month – the same time the Strategy 31 rallies are meant to take place – thus providing the city government with a formal way to refuse to sanction the oppositionists’ event.

“It brings to mind how in the 20s of the last century they [Stalin loyalists – ed.] would disrupt Trotskyist meetings by using young people who stirred up fights. Those who disrupted the meetings were, in the end, convicted of taking part in Trotskyist rallies,” said Muzykantsky, as quoted by Interfax. “Young people were used cynically, and then they were thrown out.”

He added that he pitied the young people who are attracted to taking part in the events that are meant to disrupt the Strategy 31 rallies.

Russian Human Rights Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin, who joined Muzykantsky at Monday’s rally as an observer (and who police attempted to arrest), called the detentions “illegal” and said that the idea of a “sanctioned action” does not actually exist in Russian legislation. Instead, according to the constitution, organizers are only required to notify the local government if they plan to hold a large demonstration, he said.

Just as a two-day summit between Russia and the European Union wrapped up on Tuesday, EU representatives said that they knew of Lukin’s comments and promised to investigate Monday’s actions by the Moscow police.

Michael Webb, the deputy in charge of the EU delegation, said that “on the whole, the European Union supports Russia so that it fulfills the obligations that it undertook as part of the Council of Europe. And also so that it realizes civil rights as secured by the constitution. In particular, the right to free assembly and free speech.”

Russian police detained as many as 170 protesters on Monday evening in Moscow, as more than 1000 opposition activists gathered for the ninth iteration of the Strategy 31 rallies, a series of protests in defense of the constitutional right to the freedom of assembly. Activists and observers present at the rally say that the violence used by the police against protesters was even more brutal than it has been in previous Strategy 31 events, resulting in dozens of injuries and at least two hospitalizations.

Despite repeated appeals by opposition organizers, the Moscow city government refused to sanction the May 31 rally – an ongoing trend that has been criticized by human rights groups and governmental bodies in Russia, Europe, and the United States. Moscow’s Triumfalnaya Square, which the organizers have made their traditional meeting place, had been occupied since earlier in the day by a group of pro-Kremlin youth organizations holding a rally in support of blood drives. Additionally, the entrance to the square from the adjacent metro station had been cordoned off by police.

Such was the scene when Strategy 31 protesters began to arrive for the 6:00 pm rally. According to the Kasparov.ru news site, a young man wearing a shirt indicating that he was involved with the blood drive rally grabbed a poster reading “down with the illegal government” out of the hands of one of the protesters. At that point, the crowd began loudly chanting, and police then began to make detentions.

Eyewitnesses noted that particularly harsh measures were used against participants of the rally. Police dragged protesters, including young women, along the ground and shoved them into buses waiting nearby. They also broke journalists’ cameras and fired pepper spray into the crowd, regardless of the fact that pregnant women and children were present.

Police went about the detentions and general brutality despite the presence of observers from the European Parliament, Russian Human Rights Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin, reappointed by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in 2009, and Moscow Human Rights Ombudsman Aleksandr Muzykantsky. The police, in fact, attempted to detain Lukin before realizing who he was.

Editor-in-Chief of the New Times magazine, Yevgeniya Albats, was also detained, but was quickly released after she began reporting live from the scene, presumably by cell phone or through other reporters present.

Two of the three Strategy 31 organizers, former Soviet dissident Lyudmila Alexeyeva and writer Eduard Limonov (both of whom have been detained at previous rallies), were surrounded a ring of personal guards and reporters during Monday’s event. The police, however, violently detained the guards for no apparent reason. At the same time, people in the same blood drive rally shirts as the previously mentioned young man attempted to provoke fights with those surrounding the organizers.

Kasparov.ru reports that police detained at least 140 people in all, while Interfax reports the figure as closer to 170. Among those detained were Solidarity bureau member Ilya Yashin, Oborona coordinator Oleg Kozlovsky, Forum.msk news site Editor-in-Chief Anatoly Baranov, Sergei Aksenov of the Other Russia coalition, and Konstantin Kosyakin, the third Strategy 31 organizer. Numerous other journalists were also arrested. Reporting from one of the police buses, Solidarity member Nadezhda Mityushkin said that activists were being severely beaten, Kozlovsky in particular.

The detainees were split up and taken to several different police stations, where the situation for many began to deteriorate. Writing on their microblogs, a number of the detained activists said that OMON riot police held them in hot buses for more than an hour and refused to give them water. An ambulance was eventually called for one Solidarity member who became sick after being kept in one for “several hours.”

The most scandalous case appears to be that of Solidarity activist and Gazeta.ru journalist Aleksandr Artemev, who was hospitalized after police allegedly crushed his shoulder to pieces. The incident allegedly occurred when police ordered detainees off of one of the police buses, before following to violently shoved them back in.

Kasparov.ru reports that doctors have diagnosed Artemev with a comminuted shoulder fracture; as a result, he will have to spend ten days in the hospital.

Artemev noted that he came to the Strategy 31 rally as a civil activist, not as a journalist, and that he did not present his journalist credentials to police upon being detained.

The activist also said that he plans to file suit against the police, and that he has several witnesses as well as video footage of the incident.

Mikhail Mikhailov, editor-in-chief of Gazeta.ru, told Kasparov.ru that the incident was “monstrous.”

“The horror of it is that the police officers used violence against a person who possesses a passport as a citizen of the Russian Federation, and at that did it openly, fearing nothing,” said Mikhailov.

Colonel Aleksandr Khavkin, head of the Zamoskvoreche police station where Artemev was injured, denied that his officers were at fault.

Editor-in-Chief Svetlana Mironyuk of RIA Novosti, who also heads the Public Council of the Moscow City Police, told Gazeta.ru that what happened to Artemev was “outrageous” and promised that the council would invite him to give his side of the story.

Solidarity Executive Director Denis Bilunov said that once inside one of the police stations, the detained activists were held for five hours before being interrogated by men presumed to be Federal Security Service (FSB) officials.

Kasparov.ru reported Tuesday morning that most of the detainees were held by police overnight, and that by this afternoon some had still not been released. The majority are being charged with participating in an unsanctioned event (punishable by up to a 1000 ruble/$32 fine) and resisting a police officer (up to 15 days in detention).

Opposition activists also held a Strategy 31 rally in St. Petersburg. Police detained between 50 and 100 of the 500 gathered on Gostiny Dvor after the crowd began to shout “We need a different Russia” and “Russia will be free.”

Elsewhere in the city, 1500 oppositionists gathered for a “March of Dissent,” also dedicated to defending the constitutional right to free assembly. According to United Civil Front’s St. Petersburg branch leader Olga Kurnosova, OMON riot police initially attempted to block the march before backing down in the face of the insistent protesters.

Yury Shevchuk, leader of the rock band DDT and outspoken Kremlin critic, had asked Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Saturday whether or not the march would be allowed. The prime minister then responded that it would be allowed if participants acted legally and did not, for example, hold the march near a hospital. The media followed to take his words as an official sanction of the march, although Putin’s press secretary refuted this the next day.

Additionally, in an interview with Gazeta.ru published on Sunday, Shevchuk said that he had received a call from the Russian White House before the meeting and was asked not to pose any “harsh questions of a political character” to the prime minister, because “the prime minister is very tired and you don’t need to irritate and upset him.”

Solidarity bureau member and former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov took part in the March of Dissent in St. Petersburg, and commented on the situation in Moscow on his blog:

The situation in Moscow is markedly worse. More than 100 people have been detained, including our colleagues Ilya Yashin and Oleg Kozlovsky. Yashin was holding a Russian flag, Kozlovsky was holding nothing in general. They were held in a scorching hot bus, and are now waiting in the stations. This is a question of the dialogue between Shevchuk and Putin the other day. There are no hospitals on Triumfalnaya Square or Gostiny Dvor, nobody besides the OMON officers themselves blocked traffic. Nobody held banners or used megaphones. Nevertheless, there are more than 100 detainees. A classic example of hypocrisy and lies. Say one thing, think another, do something else.

Of course, having met with Putin, Shevchuk held his March of Dissent spectacularly. And decent people are grateful to him for that. But with Putin, like always – spite, an attempt to deride a distinguished rock musician, and a pathological fear of his own people.

In addition to the events in Moscow and St. Petersburg, several other Strategy 31 rallies were held on Monday all across Russia, including in the cities of Tomsk, Voronezh, Vladivostok, Omsk, and Krasnoyarsk.

A video of the proceedings in Moscow can be seen by clicking here (note: the music that comes on halfway through was from the blood drive rally organizers).

Correction – June 9, 2010:  This story originally reported that the event held by pro-Kremlin youth groups was a blood drive. It was, in fact, a rally in support of the idea of a blood drive; no blood was donated at the event. The article has been corrected to reflect as much.