RFE/RL

As Russia gears up for mass nationwide demonstrations on Saturday, RFE/RL correspondents will provide wall-to-wall coverage with breaking news, live streaming video, and expert analysis. Be sure to follow Radio Svoboda online (also in Russian), The Power Vertical blog (also on Twitter), and RFERL.org for news as it happens.

Current coverage:

# Preparations are taking place by various opposition groups for Saturday’s protest actions — both sanctioned and non-sanctioned. RFE/RL has interviews with opposition activists Yevgenia Chirikova, Arkady Murashev and Sergey Udaltsov (listen to Radio Svoboda’s “Facets of Time”.)

# The presence of nationalist voices is unsettling some of Russia’s ethnic minorities who are otherwise sympathetic to the movement’s goals. It’s a potential division that unnerves liberals and that the Kremlin is more than eager to exploit. Tom Balmforth reports from Moscow.

# Balmforth also profiles the tech-savvy organizers of the protests, which have been dubbed a “Facebook revolution” by one privately owned media outlet.

# Brian Whitmore examines “The Decembrist Uprising” and how out of touch Vladimir Putin and the ruling elite have become with the society they helped create.

Saturday’s coverage:

# Live broadcasting and Twittering will start at 9 am (Prague time)/ 3 am (EST). RFE/RL reporters will be distributed throughout the country and will include dispatches from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Barnaul, Ulyanovsk, Tomsk, Izhevsk, Krasnodar, Arkhangelsk, Chelyabinsk, Ekaterinburg, and Tyumen.

# Live video streaming of Moscow events will start at 11 am (Prague time)/5 am (EST) on Radio Svoboda website.

For breaking news in all RFE/RL broadcast regions, also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.