The four activists, who hailed from the liberal Yabloko party, wore shirts reading “Save Baikal from the TsBK,” referring to the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill, which environmentalists say is killing the world’s largest freshwater lake.

The small group unfurled a wordless banner picturing the lake in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square, and was surrounded by police after taking only a few steps. After the police succeeded in taking away the banner, the activists argued that they had every right to hold their protest and demanded to speak to Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev. Ten minutes later, however, all four had been detained and brought away for processing at a police station.

Russian federal legislation prohibits rallies or protests from being held without receiving government sanction, which rights activists say is a violation of the country’s constitution. In addition to that, it is entirely forbidden to hold any kind of gathering, protest, or march on Red Square without the express permission of the president himself.

Despite grave environmental concerns, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a decree in mid-January to change the environmental laws previously prohibiting waste from being dumped into Lake Baikal to allow the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill to resume suspended operations. Saturday was the final day to sign a petition calling on UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova to defend the lake, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. While supporters of the mill say that it will bring much-needed jobs to the region, critics insist that not only does the decree violate Russian law, but it also “obstructs the environment-safe economic development of the town of Baikalsk and the whole Baikal region.”

Regional police have taken startling measures to suppress outrage about the mill, including by bringing armored vehicles and least one tank to a large protest and by seizing computers from environmental activists.

More photographs from the protest can be found on Ekho Moskvy’s website by clicking here.

The confession came during a meeting in Moscow on Wednesday between Deripaska and Spanish law enforcement representatives, who had accused the magnate last October of taking part in a scheme to launder 4 million Euros between 2001 and 2004 in two metals companies with suspected connections to the Russian mafia. At the time, Deripaska denied any such connections, and appealed to the Prosecutor General that he was prepared to answer any questions on the part of the Spanish authorities to clarify the situation.

However, it became clear during the resulting five hour interrogation that this was not exactly the case.

The interrogation began with the Russian tycoon angrily attacking Spanish National Court Judge Fernando Andreu for “undermining his business reputation,” El Pais reported. Before Spanish prosecutor Jose Grinda had time to pose his first question, Deripaska threw an article by a Spanish newspaper on the table in front of him and, raising his voice, asked Andreu in an accusatory tone: “What’s going to happen to my prestige?”

In response, Grinda told his Russian colleague, also present during the interrogation, that they would have to call the meeting off and return to Madrid if Deripaska was intent on continuing in such a rude manner.

Though tempers calmed, wrote El Pais, Deripaska continued to deny his participation in the money laundering scheme.

“His strategy was to portray himself as a victim of extortion by Israeli citizen Michael Cherney, who was later arrested as the of owner of Vera Metallurgica, the Alicante-based company that the Izmailova mafia organization allegedly laundered the funds through,” says the Spanish newspaper, adding that the company has alleged connections with Deripaska’s own Urals Mining and Metallurgical Company. Izmailova is one of the largest organized crime gangs in Russia.

However, Deripaska did admit that he paid a certain amount of money to the mafia gang, but only in order to protect his business – not to launder any money. A source close to the oligarch’s holding company, Basic Element, confirmed to online newspaper Gazeta.ru that Deripaska had indeed given money to Cherney, but also said that in the 1990s there was no other choice if he had wished to protect his business.

The admission mirrors Deripaska’s statement in 2008 concerning his alleged connections with Russian mobster Anton Malevsky. According to the Times, Deripaska “insists that the arrangement with Malevsky was a protection racket that was forced upon him.” Despite this and other allegations by American, British, and Spanish authorities, Deripaska has never been convicted of connections with the mafia. According to legal experts speaking to Gazeta.ru, it’s unlikely that he will face any consequences in this case, either, except in terms of his image. At the same time, El Pais reported that the Russian prosecutor present at the meeting had advised all parties to keep the interrogation a secret, and the paper did not reveal how it got its information.

Oleg Deripaska is considered to be one of the most influential people in Russia today. His vast holdings in the metals, construction, and automobile industries have allowed him to amass a fortune of $10.7 billion, making him the 57th richest man in the world (9th before the global economic crisis). He is widely known to be a close associate of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who signed a controversial decree earlier this year to allow Deripaska’s Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill to reopen despite gross environmental concerns. Residents in the city of Irkutsk, where the mill is located, have been protesting ever since, and accuse the prime minister of covering up Deripaska’s unethical business practices.

In a press release issued on Monday, ecologists at the Baikal Environmental Wave expressed concern that police officers had been visiting the homes and places of work of members of the organization. Among those officers were agents from the notoriously brutal Center for Extremism Prevention, commonly known as Center “E” and accused by Amnesty International of torturing detainees.

Over the course of “discussion” with ecologists’ relatives, says the statement, officers made disparaging remarks about the Baikal Environmental Wave and co-leader Marina Rikhvanova.

Rikhvanova told Kasparov.ru that the police most likely obtained the ecologists’ home addresses from computers confiscated from the organization at the end of January, supposedly for using unlicensed software.

The ecologists believe that the police visits and confiscations are a direct result of the organization’s protest against the reopening of the infamous Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill. In particular, Rikhvanova was critical of a notification from the city sanitation department, which claimed that the mill would clean its sewage before dumping it into Lake Baikal, the world’s largest freshwater lake and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

“But nobody knows how they’re going to clean it, or if they’re going to clean it at all, because all of the cleaning equipment is kept out under the open sky and, as the mill’s management said earlier, a minimum of three months of above-freezing temperatures are required to start it up,” Rikhvanova explained.

The organization is planning to hold a rally in defense of the lake on March 20.

After decades of protests, the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill was closed in October 2008 due to environmental concerns regarding the mill’s discharge of toxic waste into Lake Baikal: Over the course of 40 years of operation, toxic discharge created dead zone in the lake of more than 12 square miles. Hundreds of tons of waste stored in open-air pits have created more air pollution than almost anywhere else in Russia.

Despite this, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a decree in mid-January to change the environmental laws previously prohibiting waste from being dumped into the lake, thus allowing the mill to resume operations. Approximately two thousand people gathered in protest on February 13, demanding that the mill be closed, that mill owner and oligarch Oleg Deripaska be held accountable, and that Prime Minister Putin resign. Police responded to the protest with greatly excessive measures, calling out armored vehicles and a small tank to flank the demonstrators.

An estimated two thousand people attended a protest in the Siberian city of Irkutsk on Saturday, and another 1200 people attended an unrelated protest in the city of Samara on the same day. Among other demands, both groups had harsh criticism for the prime minister and called for him to immediately step down.

In Irkutsk, residents, workers, and environmental activists gathered to protest the reopening of the controversial Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill. After decades of protests, operations at the mill were finally suspended in October 2008 due to environmental concerns regarding the mill’s discharge of toxic waste into Lake Baikal, the world’s largest freshwater lake and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. However, a decree signed by Prime Minister Putin in mid-January allowed the mill to reopen, sparking renewed outrage from citizens and environmental activists internationally.

A coalition of ecological and civic organizations organized Saturday’s protest, and politicians from the local legislative assembly and Moscow showed up to support the effort. Leader Sergei Mitrokhin of the liberal Yabloko Party and co-leader Vladimir Milov of the Solidarity opposition movement were among those present. Activists from the banned National Bolshevik Party also attended the protest, holding a banner reading “People! Baikal! Victory!” – the acronym of which matches with the acronym of their party name in Russian.

Protesters singled out oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who has control over the mill, and Prime Minister Putin, who they accuse of covering up Deripaska’s unethical business practices, as the main targets of their enmity.

Irkutsk city officials had warned prior to the rally that security would be tight. Blaming “the current economic situation of Russia” for an increase in opposition protests, Deputy Internal Minister Mikhail Sukhodolsky promised that “no excuses will be accepted” for failures of the police to curb demonstrations.

Given that, the city dispatched a number of armored military vehicles to flank the demonstration. Photographs published online of the vehicles, one of which resembles a small tank, were decried on Tuesday by the Russian Internal Ministry as “provocational and not corresponding to reality.” In a statement to Kasparov.ru, Solidarity activist Ilya Yashin maintained that “my colleague Vladimir Milov took these photographs, and many people saw these machines.”

The increase in police forces was especially notable because of the comparatively small security presence at a January 30 rally in Kaliningrad, where 12 thousand people gathered to protest rising tariffs and to demand the resignations of the prime minister and local Governor Georgy Boos.

Demonstrators at a counter-protest in Irkutsk organized by the pro-Kremlin United Russia party praised the reopening of the mill, with between a thousand and 1500 participants holding banners with the phrases “Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill – our life” and “Thanks to the government for the opportunity to work in Baikalsk.” One placard directed at opponents of the mill read “Suitcase – Station – UNESCO.”

In contrast to their choices during the Kaliningrad rally, the regional branches of the token opposition groups Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) and A Just Russia sided with the United Russia counter-demonstration. State Duma Deputy and LDPR member Andrei Lugovoy, who is wanted by a British court for suspicion in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, travelled from Moscow to address the crowd.

The second protest, in Samara, was initially intended to be held “in defense of constitutional rights and freedoms.” In addition, however, protesters turned out to voice their disapproval of numerous governmental practices, including rising housing and utilities tariffs, crumbling infrastructure, and the failed modernization of the local AvtoVAZ automobile manufacturer. Among their concrete demands were the return of direct gubernatorial elections and the resignations of Prime Minister Putin and Samara Governor Vladimir Artyakov, who is also the former head of AvtoVAZ.

A number of civic and labor organizations took part in the rally in Samara, including the All-Russian Strike Committee, which was invited by AvtoVAZ factory workers. According to Committee coordinator Nikolai Nikolaev, several groups of auto workers from the cities of Tolyatti and Syzran were unable to attend the demonstration because police had blocked off the road.

Given the failed modernization of the auto manufacturer, Nikolayev said after the rally, “people discussed the issue of how to live from now on. The AvtoVAZ workers said that the authorities are not dealing with their problems.”

In their own way of dealing with their problems, regional police in Samara are planning to initiate criminal charges against the rally’s organizers. During the demonstration, voters rights activist Aleksandr Lashmankin called for participants to stage a repeat demonstration on March 5 – a statement that “was not covered in the application to hold the rally,” a police representative explained to the Interfax news agency.