MOSCOW — A wave of unsanctioned rallies swept across Russia on Sunday to protest corruption in the government of President Vladi­mir Putin in a nationwide show of defiance not seen in years, one the Kremlin had tried in vain to prevent with bans and warnings.

Too angry to be cowed, they poured into the street, fed up with their country’s wide-reaching corruption and a government unwilling, or unable, to stop it. Police responded with barricades, tear gas and mass arrests in cities across Russia. 

By Sunday evening, riot police in body armor and helmets had hauled in more than 700 demonstrators in central Moscow, as the crowd, numbering in the tens of thousands, cheered, whistled and chanted, “Shame! Shame!” As twilight approached, protesters in the city clashed with police, and at least one officer was hospitalized with head trauma, the Meduza news agency reported. 

One of the first detained in Moscow was the chief architect of the rallies, Alexei Navalny, who called on people to protest in the wake of his allegations that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has amassed vineyards, luxury yachts and lavish mansions worth more than $1 billion.

One of Navalny’s associates tweeted that he was told he could face charges of extremism for broadcasting the rally illegally. If that is the case, a lot of people are going to be in trouble; thousands of iPhones recorded as police closed off central Moscow’s Pushkin Square, lined major streets and hauled anyone carrying signs into large buses. Also among the detained was American Alec Luhn, an accredited reporter for the Guardian; he was later released. 

A man with a sign that read “We Found Your Money” and depicted drawings of the luxury boats and estates mentioned in Navalny’s report was dragged down and carried off by police seconds after he took the sign out. 

“This is all about corruption. Everyone here knows that all of our leaders are thieves,” said Vitaly Kerzunov, a protester who had come to Moscow from Belgorod, about 400 miles to the south. He wanted to take out his own poster, wrapped in a black plastic bag, but he feared arrest. 

Fear was one thing authorities were counting on to keep people away. On Friday, senior Russian police official Alexander Gorovoi warned that authorities would “bear no responsibility for any possible negative consequences” for people who did show up. Putin’s spokesman said that even telling people to come to the rallies was “illegal.”

[Despite Kremlin’s warning, defiant Putin critic Navalny to hold ‘illegal’ rally]

Instead, the demonstrations appear to amount to the largest coordinated protests in Russia since the street rallies that broke out in 2011 and 2012 after a parliamentary election that opposition leaders decried as fraudulent. Back then, Putin accused Hillary Clinton, secretary of state at the time, of inciting the protests. Sunday there was no such excuse; the White House offered no encouragement.

 Even more notable was the silence of state-run Russian television. But pictures posted on social media sites such as Twitter suggested that sizable rallies were underway across the country, and unofficial news agencies such as the Riga-based Meduza carried extensive updates.

The privately owned Interfax news agency reported on rallies across Siberia and in Russia’s Far East, where it said two dozen protesters had been detained. The agency cited police as saying that about 7,000 protesters gathered in Moscow, but the crowd, which lined Moscow’s main artery, Tverskaya Street, on both sidewalks for more than a mile and crammed the spacious Pushkin Square, appeared to be much larger than that. 

For some time, the protesters blocked the street until Interior Ministry troops in combat gear pushed them off. An irritant gas similar to tear gas was fired off; police later reported that it was someone in the crowd. A voice on a loudspeaker, for about an hour after the rally began, asked protesters who came out “on this spring Sunday” to go “express their will as citizens” at a park away from the center. Later, as scores of riot police filled the square, the message became more strident. 

“You are participants in an unsanctioned demonstration,” the voice intoned. “Consider the consequences.”

Protesters responded by the thousands in the 21st-century way: They bombarded officers with selfies and videos. One grim-faced lieutenant in urban camouflage cracked a grin as he told The Washington Post, “I must have been photographed 1,000 times today; no wait, much more than that.” Then he posed for another.

The Moscow protest presented an odd juxtaposition of anger and an outdoor party. High school-age young people danced and laughed at the long lines of police as the crowd cheered, then led everyone in a chant: “You can’t jail us all!” When a young man held up a pair of yellow rubber ducks — a reference to a detail in Navalny’s report that ducks have their own house at one of the lavish estates allegedly owned by Medvedev — he was immediately dragged off. 

“Shame, shame!” screamed the young people. “Shame!” joined in a small group of pensioners. 

Official Moscow has dismissed Navalny, who has said he will run for president in 2018, as a widely reviled nuisance whose allegations are an attention-grabbing stunt. Putin, who almost certainly will run for reelection, is hoping for a landslide to validate his past six years of authoritarian rule, a time in which the Russian economy has slid but the country has asserted itself militarily in Syria and Ukraine. 

[Here are 10 critics of Vladimir Putin who died violently or in suspicious ways]

One of the slogans for Sunday’s rallies is “No one showed up,” a reference to the dismissal by authorities of Navalny’s popular support.

A young Moscow couple, who gave only their first names, Alexei and Olga, had brought their 1-year-old daughter, Agata.

“We wanted the leaders to see that we’re here,” Alexei said. “And we had no one to leave her with.”

Navalny, who emerged as an anti-corruption whistleblower and took a leading role in the street protests that accompanied Putin’s 2012 return to the presidency, has been the target of fraud and embezzlement probes he calls politically motivated. In 2013, he was convicted of siphoning money off a lumber sale, a verdict that the European Court of Human Rights declared “prejudicial,” saying that Navalny and his co-defendant were denied the right to a fair trial.

In November, Russia’s Supreme Court declared a retrial, and Navalny was convicted of embezzlement and handed a five-year suspended sentence in February, which by Russian law would prevent him from running for president.

Andrew Roth in Moscow contributed to this report.

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« We must come together to find solutions to move this country forward,” Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.) said in his resignation statement. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

If President Trump is going to put the blame for Republicans’ inability to pass health-care legislation on the House Freedom Caucus, at least one member of the conservative coalition thinks it deserves it.

Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.) resigned Sunday from the coalition of 35 to 40 conservative House lawmakers in protest over the group’s opposition to the Republican health-care bill that tanked in Congress on Friday.

“I have resigned from the House Freedom Caucus,” Poe said in a statement. “In order to deliver on the conservative agenda we have promised the American people for eight years, we must come together to find solutions to move this country forward. Saying no is easy, leading is hard, but that is what we were elected to do. Leaving this caucus will allow me to be a more effective Member of Congress and advocate for the people of Texas. It is time to lead.”

Poe’s resignation comes hours after Trump tweeted that the Freedom Caucus, along with cash-flush conservative groups that share its hard-line ideological views, “have saved Planned Parenthood” and Obamacare by opposing the bill.

Democrats are smiling in D.C. that the Freedom Caucus, with the help of Club For Growth and Heritage, have saved Planned Parenthood Ocare!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 26, 2017

[Donald Trump is giving mixed messages about whom to blame on health care]

It’s not clear whether Trump’s statement had a direct effect on Poe’s decision to leave the caucus. He was leaning toward voting for the bill, and he was openly critical of his conservative colleagues as the bill was being pulled from a vote.

Thx for your leadership @realDonaldTrump @SpeakerRyan Some only want to be the party of ‘no’ would’ve voted against the 10 commandments

— Ted Poe (@JudgeTedPoe) March 24, 2017

As the fallout from Republicans’ inability to make good on a major campaign promise continues, the White House and GOP leaders are increasingly vocal about their frustrations with the House Freedom Caucus.

“We can’t be chasing the perfect all the time,” Trump’s chief of staff, Reince Priebus, said Sunday on Fox News, raising the possibility that the White House will put less emphasis on negotiating with the caucus going forward and try to work with Democrats instead.

Despite half a dozen concessions the White House and GOP House leaders offered to the caucus on health care, its leaders held out support — enough that, when combined with opposition from moderate Republicans, it killed the bill before it could even come to a vote.

Mark Meadows betrayed Trump and America and supported Pelosi and Dems to protect Obamacare. https://t.co/zjcfmMhs9P

— Rep. Austin Scott (@AustinScottGA08) March 25, 2017

Poe is not the first lawmaker to resign from the Freedom Caucus.

In September 2015, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) became the first to step away from the group as it threatened to shut down the government over federal funding for Planned Parenthood. In a comment that channels what Trump said Sunday, McClintock protested the group’s tactics as playing right into the hands of the Democrats.

“It has thwarted vital conservative policy objectives,” he wrote, “and wittingly become Nancy Pelosi’s tactical ally.”

In October 2015, Rep. Reid Ribble (R-Wis.) resigned after the Freedom Caucus played a role in forcing then-Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Wis.) to resign as House speaker.

“I was a member of the Freedom Caucus in the very beginning because we were focused on making process reforms to get every Member’s voice heard and advance conservative policy,” Ribble said in a statement. “When the Speaker resigned and they pivoted to focusing on the leadership race, I withdrew.”