Russia Seeks Eight-Year Jail Terms for Opposition Activists

Russian prosecutors on Monday demanded eight-year jail terms for radical opposition leader Sergei Udaltsov and a fellow activist on charges of organizing mass riots to destabilize Vladimir Putin's rule.

Udaltsov's lawyer Violetta Volkova said prosecutors were seeking eight-year jail terms for him as well as co-defendant Leonid Razvozzhayev. "Eight years for each," she said on Twitter.

"The prosecutors demanded eight years for each for organising mass riots, (and) preparing mass riots,"  Razvozzhayev's lawyer Dmitry Agranovsky told Agence France Presse.

The high-profile case stems from protests involving tens of thousands of demonstrators that broke out in Moscow on the eve of Putin's inauguration to a third Kremlin term in May 2012.

The unrest led to hundreds of arrests and a crackdown on the youth-driven anti-Putin movement that emerged in response to tainted December 2011 parliamentary elections won narrowly by the ruling party.