DUSHANBE, December 9, 2011, Asia-Plus -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has accused the United States of being behind protests over the results of Russia''s parliamentary elections, the BBC reported on December 8.

Putin reportedly said US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “set the tone for some opposition activists.”   She “gave them a signal, they heard this signal and started active work,” he said.

Mrs. Clinton maintained that her concerns were “well-founded.”  Election monitors have also been critical.

About 1,000 people have been arrested in Moscow during three days of protests alleging election fraud.  Organizers have called another protest for Saturday.

Putin accused the protesters of acting “in accordance with a well-known scenario and in their own mercenary political interests.”  He warned that those working for foreign governments to influence Russian politics would be held to account.  “It is unacceptable when foreign money is pumped into election processes,” Mr. Putin said in comments shown on state-run TV.  “We should think of forms of defense of our sovereignty, defense from interference from abroad,” he added.

Mrs. Clinton said the US supported the “rights and aspirations of the Russian people.” “We expressed concerns that we thought were well-founded about the conduct of the elections,” Mrs. Clinton told a news conference in Brussels after talks between NATO allies and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

The OSCE monitors said on Monday that there had been “severe problems with the counting process” after the vote, citing apparent irregularities such as the stuffing of ballot boxes.

According to the BBC, Russia''s only independent election monitoring group, Golos - which is funded by the US and the EU - logged 5,300 allegations of electoral violations.

Its website was hacked and the head of the organization detained for several hours on Sunday. Prosecutors fined Golos 30,000 rubles ($958) for violations of the electoral law.

Reuters reports Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday responded angrily to comments Mrs. Clinton made about the conduct of the elections during an OSCE meeting in Lithuania.  “This is not Hyde Park, this is not Triumphal Square in Moscow, where speakers arrive to pour out their soul and then turn around and leave, not listening to others,” he said, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile the December 8 item “Russian Protesters Mobilize Via Social Networks, As Key Opposition Leaders Jailed” posted on Radio Liberty’s website notes that in the latest sign of the growing role the Internet is playing in bringing a groundswell of public discontent with the Kremlin onto the streets, some 18,000 people have signed up on a Facebook page to attend planned mass nationwide demonstrations on December 10 over alleged election violations.  On Vkontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook, 7,000 people have promised to show up.