On Sunday some 3,000 people in St. Petersburg protesting the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to march toward government buildings but were violently stopped by police in riot gear.

An estimated 350 protestors were arrested, some of them for "chanting anti-constitutional and anti-government slogans and using foul language," a police spokesman told Russian news agency Interfax. "Leaflets and pamphlets urging readers to organize an unauthorized march were seized from several other demonstrators. They were detained and taken to a police station."

Dozens of demonstrators were injured, among them women and senior citizens. Among the injured was also a German TV journalist who was knocked down by a punch in the face.

"The crackdown on the opposition demonstrates a new level of state-sanctioned violence in Russia," Rainer Lindner, Russia expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, a Berlin-based think, told United Press International in a telephone interview Monday.

The Sunday incidents followed the arrest of some 200 people in Moscow on Saturday, when the members of "Other Russia," an anti-government umbrella organization, were violently stopped from demonstrating in the city center.

The group's members on both days wanted to protest Russia's poor democratic record, its increasing government control of the media and a lack of debate with the political opposition, which has been violently pushed to the sidelines in the country.

Gary Kasparov, a former world chess champion and today the head of the United Civil Front, a political opposition group, was arrested and fined for participating in an unsanctioned rally. Several Western journalists reporting on the marches were also abused and detained, according to numerous media reports.

It's not that Kasparov's movement has any realistic chance of unsettling the power structure in Russia.

"President Vladimir Putin has an obedient administration, high approval ratings among the population and -- thanks to oil and gas revenue -- a pile of cash as well," the German daily Suddeutsche Zeitung wrote in an editorial Monday.

So how is it possible that a few thousand peaceful anti-Putin demonstrators provoke such an overreaction by the Kremlin?

Lindner said the violence was intended to ring the bell on how the opposition will be dealt with ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections in Russia.

"In Moscow's view, competition is perceived as weakness, and weakness will not be tolerated," he told UPI. In the process, anti-Kremlin activists are portrayed as "troublemakers" who "threaten domestic security," he said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who currently chairs the Group of Eight and holds the rotating six-month European Union presidency, on Monday sent some clear words to the Kremlin. Merkel was concerned about Moscow's "excessive use of violence," her deputy spokesman Thomas Steg said Monday in Berlin. Violence against journalists was unacceptable, he said, adding that the German government expected the cases of abuse to be cleared up.

Merkel's next meeting with Putin will be on May 18 at the EU-Russia summit in Samara, and Steg said the police violence will be discussed.

Critical words from foreign leaders will likely be among the harshest penalties for the Kremlin. Despite an increasing concern in Western Europe about Russia's poor democratic record, governments have so far shied away from real diplomatic consequences, mainly because of Russia's growing importance as an energy supplier, observers say.

Linder said it was important that Merkel, in her role as EU president, sends a clear message that the European body has an understanding of democracy that currently does not align with that of the Kremlin.

"That way, the strategic partnership between the EU and Russia can't be upheld," he told UPI. "Economic ties are important, but not at any cost."

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