MOSCOW, November 4 (RIA Novosti) – Moscow police have detained 25 men wearing black field overcoats with Nazi swastika in the center of the city as Russia was celebrating National Unity Day on Sunday.
“The Moscow police have detained 25 people in black field overcoats with the swastika near the Tretyakovskaya metro station who were chanting slogans,” a police spokesman said.
The detained persons have been taken to a police station where the charges of administrative offences will be brought against them, the spokesman said.
Moscow will hold several events on Sunday to mark National Unity Day, with nationalist and opposition forces expected to hold their rallies across the city.
Activists of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) will gather on Pushkin Square in downtown Moscow to call for democracy without political turmoil.
Russian nationalists will mark the holiday with their Russian March in the center of Moscow. They will march along the Yakimanka and Krymskaya Embankment to hold a rally in front of Moscow’s Central House of Artist.
National Unity Day was introduced by the Kremlin in 2005 to replace the communist holiday of November 7 celebrating the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.
November 4 now marks the liberation of Russia from Polish invaders in 1612.