stylistic:style_transfer
Opposition to Putin administration (2010–2013)

Kasparov was among the 34 first signatories and a key organiser of the online anti-Putin campaign " Putin must go ", started on 10 March 2010. Within the text is a call to Russian law enforcement to ignore Putin's orders. By June 2011, there were 90,000 signatures. While the identity of the petition author remained anonymous, there was wide speculation that it was indeed Kasparov. On 31 January 2012, Kasparov hosted a meeting of opposition leaders planning a mass march on 4 February 2012, the third major opposition rally held since the disputed State Duma elections of December 2011. Among other opposition leaders attending were Alexey Navalny and Yevgeniya Chirikova.

Kasparov was arrested and beaten outside a Moscow court on 17 August 2012 while attending sentencing in the case involving the all-female punk band Pussy Riot. On 24 August, he was cleared of charges that he had taken part in an unauthorised protest against the conviction of three members of the band. Judge Yekaterina Veklich said there were "no grounds to believe the testimony of the police". Kasparov later thanked all the bloggers and reporters who provided video evidence that contradicted the testimony of the police. Kasparov wrote in February 2013 that "fascism has come to Russia....Project Putin, just like the old Project Hitler, is but the fruit of a conspiracy by the ruling elite. Fascist rule was never the result of the free will of the people. It was always the fruit of a conspiracy by the ruling elites!"

Kasparov denied rumours in April 2013 that he was planning to leave Russia for good. "I found these rumors to be deeply saddening and, moreover, surprising," he wrote. "I was unable to respond immediately because I was in such a state of shock that such an incredibly inaccurate statement, the likes of which is constantly distributed by the Kremlin's propagandists, came this time from Ilya Yashin, a fellow member of the Opposition Coordination Council (KSO) and my former colleague from the Solidarity movement." He also accused prominent Russian journalist Vladimir Posner of failing to stand up to Putin and to earlier Russian and Soviet leaders.

However, Kasparov subsequently fled Russia less than three months later. On 6 June 2013, he announced that he had left his homeland on account of fear of persecution for his political views. Further, at the 2013 Women in the World conference, Kasparov told The Daily Beast ' s Michael Moynihan that democracy no longer existed in what he called Russia's "dictatorship".