Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin on Wednesday pledged that police would continue to clamp down hard on any attempts to stage race riots in the capital.
"I would call on the hot heads not to succumb to provocations and calls for violence. Police will continue to put down violence," the mayor told the Rossiya 24 TV channel.
At least 800 people were arrested in central Moscow on Wednesday evening as police held a massive operation to prevent race-hate riots. Reports had earlier said that nationalists and migrants from Russia's North Caucasus were planning to clash. Many of those detained were in possession of knives and stun guns.
Police also said that 30 people were injured as officers sealed off areas of the city around the Kievsky train station.
Police eventually managed to disperse a crowd of around 1,500 that gathered at Europa Square, although groups of youths chanting nationalist slogans tried to close off a nearby street.
"Police are patrolling the city's streets, subway and public transport," Sobyanin said.
The developments came after the Russian capital saw its biggest public disturbances for almost a decade on Saturday as a 5,000-strong crowd of nationalists and football hooligans clashed with police near Red Square. Rioters also attacked people from the country's North Caucasus region.
President Dmitry Medvedev called the disorder, which was triggered by the death of a football fan in a brawl with North Caucasus migrants, a threat to the very stability of the Russian state.
There were also arrests in St Petersburg on Wednesday as police prevented clashes between nationalists and Caucasus migrants.
MOSCOW, December 15 (RIA Novosti)
