Muted celebrations for Sudan's first post-Bashir Eid

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In an expletive-laden post Krid said he had filed a complaint with the police asking them to find and punish the police officer involved.

"What kind of a scumbag do you need to be to hit a member of the fairer sex," he wrote. "I don't care what she did. This kind of thing just shouldn't happen."

Lazarev called the police officer's behavior a "disgrace" and many Russians took to social media to condemn the incident using strong language.

Russian authorities have rejected accusations they have used excessive force to disperse such protests, which have now been going on for five weeks, although the United States and the European Union have questioned their use of force.

Moscow's police force declined to comment by phone, but the Interfax news agency said it had launched an internal investigation into the incident.

Sosnovskaya, who had earlier attended the sanctioned demonstration, said she was detained after complaining to police about their arrest of a man who appeared to suffer from some kind of a disability.

She has since filed a complaint about the manner in which she was detained.

In a reflection of the anger the clip generated, Pavel Chikov, a human rights lawyer, had offered a reward of 100,000 rubles ($1,500) to anyone who could identify the police officer who was wearing a face mask and a helmet at the time.