Protestors have taken to the streets in Russia’s Bashkortostan region to protest against the trial of an anti-war opposition leader.

In freezing temperatures, thousands of people are said to have gathered outside a courthouse in Baymak and been met with tear gas and beating by police.

Bashkir rights activist Fail Alsynov was sentenced to four years in a penal colony which sparked angry clashes between Alsynov supporters and police.

Alsynov was jailed on charges of inciting ethnic hatred, which he denies.

Alsynov has previously condemned Putin’s mobilisation in the Bashkortostan describing it as “genocide” against the Bashkir people, a Turkic ethnic group closely related to the Tatars who live in the southern Ural Mountains.

It comes amid accusations that the Kremlin is deploying a disproportionately large number of Russian ethnic to Ukraine.

Large demonstrations in Russia are uncommon due to the risk of arrest.

According to some accounts, the ongoing protest, which has lasted several days in temperatures around -20°C, is attended by a few thousand people, with reports of several injuries.

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