You're reading: RFE/RL: Christian state extremist group’s leader in Russia detained

RFE/RL: Christian state extremist group’s leader in Russia detained

Published Sept. 21, 2017 at 9:47 pm

Police officers stand guard as opposition supporters rally in central Moscow on May 6, 2017, to mark five years since the anti-Putin protest on Bolotnaya Square that led to dozens of arrests and injuries on both police and protesters sides.

Photo by AFP

The leader of a Russian extremist group that calls itself Christian State-Holy Rus has been detained as a suspect in a high-profile arson attack.

Interior Ministry spokeswoman Irina Volk said on September 21 that Aleksandr Kalinin was detained on September 20 as a suspect in the September 11 arson attack on cars outside the Moscow office of lawyers for the director of Matilda, a film that has drawn sharp criticism from radical Russian Orthodox and monarchist fringe groups.