MOSCOW, April 21 (Reuters) - Russia's Interior Ministry insisted on Saturday riot police had acted lawfully when they broke up opposition rallies and accused protesters of faking injuries. Police wielding batons beat, kicked and chased anti-Kremlin protesters in Moscow and St. Petersburg last weekend, drawing sharp rebukes from Western governments and human rights groups. Former chess champion turned opposition leader Garry Kasparov was detained, along with his supporters and a number of journalists and photographers. Most were released within hours.

"The protesters violated the federal law with their actions and the police were not simply forced, they were obliged by the law to intervene," Interior Ministry head of public relations Valery Gribakin told a news conference.

Earlier in the week the Kremlin said police had over-reacted to the protests, though it said foreign media had exaggerated their scale. Turnout for the demonstrations was relatively small.

But Gribakin, making the first Interior Ministry comments on the matter, was unrepentant.

"The police did everything possible not to give in to provocations and acted according to the situation," he said before showing a video where police warned protesters their action was illegal before moving in.

Germany, holder of the European Union presidency, earlier this week called the police action unacceptable and the United States expressed concern over what it called heavy-handed policing.

Gribakin said the protest organisers deliberately provoked the police and tried to draw the attention of the international media by marching in forbidden areas when they were offered and could have accepted legal, alternative venues. Reporters covering the protests saw police clubbing and arresting demonstrators, as well as some bystanders who happened to be in the area.

Gribakin said anti-Putin protesters had faked their injuries and then posed for media interviews complaining about excessive use of force by the police.

"Some provocateurs in advance prepared clothes marked with with red paint or ketchup, which they hid under their jackets or sweaters," he said.

"Their job was to fall after a contact with police, crouch on the ground as if in pain, draw the attention of passers-by and the media," Gribakin said.

Reuters reporters who covered the rallies said they did not see demonstrators faking blood with ketchup. A Reuters photographer was hit on the mouth during the protests, splitting his lip and causing bleeding.

The Kremlin is fearful of any mass protests, even though the opposition has little public support in Russia, after popular revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine brought to power pro-Western leaders, who steered their countries away from Moscow.

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