Moscow city govt blames opposition for failing to clear opposition march route
MOSCOW. Dec 11 (Interfax) - The Moscow city administration has blamed the opposition for failing to reach a compromise on the route of a mass protest procession called Freedom March in Moscow on December 15.
"They needed a pretext to be denied. They found it," Alexei Mayorov, the head of the Moscow city administration's regional security department, told Interfax on Tuesday evening.
"The applicants did all they could so that the event not be cleared. The main emphasis was on where to walk rather than what to walk with. This means they have nothing to walk with," he said.
The city hall proposed three options for a Freedom March route, one of them along the Boulevard Ring to Sakharov Avenue, the second from Trubnaya Square along the Boulevard Ring toward Kropotkinskaya, and the third one along Yakimanka Street to Bolotnaya Square and then along the riverbank, Mayorov said.
"After some discussion, they called us 20 minutes ago and said that they did not like those options and that they wanted to reach the city center, which is either Borovitskaya Square or Lubyanskaya Square," he said.
"We answered that we could not agree to this option," Mayorov said.
