Moscow police call a weekend sweep of hundreds of young people a ‘preventive measure.’ Detainees report beatings, military summonses, and pressure to sign army contracts.

On the evening of November 7, police carried out a mass roundup in Moscow’s Kitai-Gorod neighborhood. By the most widely cited estimates, 150 to 200 people were detained in total (though some reports put the number at 300), most of them young people, including minors. It was a planned raid: around 8 p.m., 10 police vans pulled up to Gorka Park on Bolshoi Spasoglinishchevsky Lane, and police loaded young people into them. Eyewitnesses said police were rounding up “anyone and everyone.”