Russian Activist on Hunger Strike

Russian far-left activist and Kremlin critic Sergei Udaltsov has gone on hunger strike after being sentenced to a month's detention over pension-reform protests, his wife said Thursday. 

Udaltsov was active in a wave of demonstrations at the end of July against deeply unpopular plans to raise the retirement age. 

He was arrested and this week sentenced to 30 days behind bars for having burned images of members of the Russian government at one of the rallies. 

"He believes the charges against him are arbitrary and has announced a hunger strike to protest the reform of the pension system and the raising of the retirement age, which are not in the interests of the people," Anastasia Udaltsova wrote on her Facebook page.

"He is sure this arrest is aimed at stopping him organizing new rallies against the reforms, especially a march and demonstration set for September 2," Udaltsov's wife wrote.

The activist also believes the authorities want to prevent him taking part in the campaign of a left-wing candidate in next month's Moscow mayoral election, which Kremlin-backed incumbent Sergei Sobyanin is all but certain to win. 

"We sent water into the provisional detention center but he has made clear this is a hunger strike without water," his wife added.

Last year Udaltsov finished a four-and-a-half-year prison sentence for organizing anti-Kremlin protests.

Udaltsov and co-defendant Leonid Razvozzhayev were convicted in July 2014 of fomenting mass riots across Russia ahead of Vladimir Putin's inauguration to a third term as president in 2012.

He went on hunger strike several times during those years spent in a penal colony in central Russia's Tambov province.