Medvedev Orders Election Probe After Putin Protest Rallies

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered an investigation of alleged parliamentary election fraud after Prime Minister Vladimir Putin faced the biggest protests in his 12 years in power.

Twenty-five thousand people gathered in the center of Moscow on Dec. 10 in near-freezing temperatures and dispersed without detentions or violence, police said. Several thousand demonstrated in St. Petersburg and more than 15,000 in about 30 other cities across the world’s biggest country by area, RIA Novosti reported.