MOSCOW, March 10 (UPI) -- A large crowd of protesters rallied in Moscow Saturday to protest the fairness of the recent Russian presidential elections, organizers said.
The size of the crowd was estimated by Moscow police at around 10,000 well below what the organizers had expected, leading some participants to speculate on whether the protest movement is losing momentum.
"I am not sure what's going to happen with the protest movement," lawyer Anton Yezhov told the RIA Novosti news agency. "I don't rule out that Russia will return to totalitarianism, but it is my civic duty to come out and show that I don't agree with the way the elections were stolen."
Critics say Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his supporters rigged the March 4 election in their favor. Putin officially was elected president for the third time with more than 69 percent of the vote.
"I was monitoring the vote on election day and I was disgusted by the amount of violations I saw," demonstrator Tatiana Novikova told RIA Novosti. "I am here today to express my protest and anger at what I witnessed."
Protest organizers had said several observers such as Novikova would be featured at the rally to reveal the alleged voting violations they saw, ITAR-Tass said.
