An anti-Kremlin rally in central Moscow on Saturday could spill over into violence, march organisers and their opponents said on Thursday, the Reuters news agency reports.

A coalition of opposition groups known as “Other Russia” predicted that 5,000 of their supporters would turn out for the protest despite a ruling by the city authorities that it was illegal.

Organisers said riot police could violently disperse the protest as they did at two previous opposition rallies in St Petersburg and the provincial city of Nizhny Novgorod earlier this year.

“We don’t know how far the Kremlin will go,” Garry Kasparov, a former chess grandmaster who is now a staunch critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, told a news briefing.

“We don’t want a violent confrontation, it would give the government another chance to say that such marches are just fights,” he said.

The authorities refused permission for the march, saying another group had already lodged an application to hold a gathering in the same venue.

Police said they would take action against anyone breaking the law. “The thing is that the march has not been approved by the Moscow government,” a Moscow police spokesman said.

“The action taken by the police depends on whether a march is allowed or not.”

Three other rallies are also planned for Saturday, including one by the pro-Kremlin Young Guard organisation which has promised around 15,000 marchers, a second by nationalists and a third from the liberal SPS party.

Kasparov said there was potential for clashes between protesters on the “other Russia” march and the other groups.

The pro-Kremlin speaker of the state Duma lower house of parliament, Boris Gryzlov, also on Thursday warned potential marchers they could be swept up into violence.

“People who go onto the streets, maybe even well-meaning, in order to express their views and positions may not know they could be sucked into provocation and violence, and could become victims,” Interfax news agency quoted Gryzlov as saying.

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