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THE Kremlin has rejected calls by the United States and the European Union to release opPOSTTTION protesters detained during demonstrations on Sunday and accused organizers of paying teenagers to take part.

The protests come a year before a presidential election that Vladimir Putin is expected to contest, running for what would be a fourth term.

Police detained hundreds of protesters across the country, including opPOSTTTION leader Alexei Navalny, after thousands took to the streets to demonstrate against corruption and demand the resignation of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Medvedev’s spokeswoman has called corruption allegations against him “propagandistic attacks,” saying they amount to pre-election posturing by Navalny, who hopes to run against Putin next year.

The US and the European Union both issued statements calling on Russia to free detained protesters, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said yesterday that such calls were wide of the mark.

He said the Kremlin had no problem with people expressing their opinions at protest meetings, but said the timing and LOCAIION of such events had to be agreed with the authorities in advance, something he said had not been done in large part on Sunday.

The authorities are concerned opPOSTTTION activists will try to encourage people to break the law again in future, he said.

“We can’t respect people who deliberately misled minors — in essence children — calling on them to take part in illegal actions in unsanctioned places and offering them certain rewards to do so, thus putting their lives at risk,” said Peskov.

“What we saw yesterday in certain places, and especially in Moscow, was a provocation.”

He said police had gathered factual evidence that some teenagers, who had been detained, had been paid cash by protest organizers to take part.

A Moscow district court ordered Navalny to serve 15 days in jail after finding him guilty of disobeying police orders.

He was fined 20,000 rubles (US$350) for organizing an unsanctioned protest.