RUSSIA:One eco-activist was killed and five others were seriously injured in Russia at the weekend when a gang of young men shouting nationalist slogans attacked an environmentalists' protest camp near a Siberian nuclear processing plant.
About 15 young men in masks, armed with baseball bats and iron bars, swooped on the unsuspecting protesters as they slept in their tents near the Angarsk Electrolysis Chemical Plant at 5am on Saturday.
Police said yesterday they had detained eight members of the gang who repeatedly beat protesters, attempted to burn their tents and stole some possessions before disappearing.
Ilya Borodaenko (21), one of three protesters who had been keeping vigil by an open fire at the forest camp, died from head wounds in hospital. Three others were still in intensive care last night with head injuries and broken bones.
The interior ministry in Moscow said there had been a "pogrom", but that there was no evidence the detained suspects were members of an extremist group. However, several of the camp protesters, who numbered 21, claimed that it was a neo-Nazi attack.