Russian police earlier today arrested 18 civilian activists just outside the Russian State Duma, including Sergei Mitrokhin and a number of prominent Yabloko party members, who had assembled for a peaceful demonstration, ironically against a proposal for a law which seeks to enforce tough penalties on civil protesters. The incident occurred just one day after the EU-Russia summit in St Petersburg in which issues of democracy and human rights were kept off the agenda.

"This heavy-handed police intervention against peaceful protesters shows, with tragic clarity, that Putin now is trying to crush what remains of civil action. The promises of reforms from last winter's large-scale demonstrations were just smokescreens to secure his re-election" said Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the ALDE Group.

"The lack of any outcome from the EU-Russia summit on 3rd and 4th of June in St Petersburg shows that the EU needs a new policy for dealing with Russia, based on objective criticism and on an insistence that democratic standards and the rule of law must be respected before Russia can be regarded as a true strategic partner and move forward on issues like visa free travel"

"The new legislative proposal that calls for excessive sanctions against all protesters and today's arrest of Sergei Mitrokhin and others are clear signs that the Kremlin does not take into the account the large scale internal and external criticism over the lack of democracy and rule of law in Russia. Just last weekend during the EU-Russia Summit, president Putin indicated that Russia is a country where everybody's civil rights are guaranteed. Unfortunately the reality continues to be different. Thus the EU will have to sharpen the way it deals with Russia and realize that the brutal reality is far from the marble halls and palaces President Putin likes to display for visiting EU delegations" said Kristiina Ojuland, ALDE Group spokesperson on Russia.