Putin in TV appeal for his party

President Putin has enjoyed positive coverage on the main channels

President Vladimir Putin has urged Russians to vote for his United Russia party in Sunday's parliamentary election, in a televised address.

"I ask you to come to the polls and vote for United Russia," he said.

President Putin, who cannot run for a third term in presidential elections next March, tops the list of United Russia's candidates.

Mr Putin said Sunday's result would "set the tone" for the March election. United Russia is expected to triumph.

He said a vote for United Russia would ensure "stability and continuity", rather than the turmoil of the 1990s.

"We cannot allow the return to power of those who once tried but failed to rule the country," he said, referring to the liberal politicians who advised his predecessor Boris Yeltsin.

He said his opponents "want to reshape Russia's development plans and change the course supported by our nation, bringing back the times of humiliation, dependence and disintegration".

Liberal opposition parties accuse the Kremlin of harassment and domination of the mass media. Police have broken up several opposition rallies, detaining the organisers.

One of them, former chess champion Garry Kasparov, was freed from jail on Thursday.

He had been held since Saturday, when police broke up a protest rally he was attending.

Mr Kasparov said he was not given access to a lawyer, and warned that Russia was sliding into dictatorship.

"Such a huge number of violations shows that our authorities have assumed a fundamentally new quality...

"The blank cheque that Putin has unfortunately received from the heads of democratic states at the numerous G7 meetings that he attended has apparently convinced the Russian authorities that they can behave totally shamelessly.

"We are in effect entering a very dangerous period because it is not clear where they will stop. They have already started sorting things out inside Putin's circle; the legal situation after 2 December is totally unclear," Mr Kasparov said.