UPDATE 1-Kremlin critic Navalny detained by police near Moscow home

Russian police detained opposition politician Alexei Navalny on Wednesday as he left his home in Moscow days before he planned to lead an opposition protest in the capital, Navalny said on social media.

The Kremlin critic's spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, said police had detained Navalny for calling on protesters to stage an unauthorized opposition rally this weekend, an offense that carries a penalty of up to 30 days in jail. "I left home for a jog and to buy my wife flowers for her birthday... There was a small bus of riot police near my stairwell and I was detained," Navalny said in a video message on Instagram.

Navalny's detention came days after a protest on Saturday against the exclusion of most opposition-minded candidates from an election for the Russian capital's legislature in September. A monitor said more than 20,000 people had attended the protest. Election officials barred the opposition-minded candidates for what it said was their failure to garner enough genuine signatures from voters to qualify to run, an allegation they rejected as false.

The candidates say the real reason they were excluded was that they were trying to challenge control over the legislature exercised by allies of President Vladimir Putin. Navalny's supporters are among those barred from running in the election. Speaking at the protest, Navalny gave election officials a week to register the excluded candidates and urged protesters to hold an unauthorized protest outside Moscow city hall on Saturday if they failed to do so.