Moscow tightens up security following unrest

Live footage from the Russia-24 TV station showed that the entrance to the Manezhnaya Square outside the Kremlin complex, downtown Moscow, was closed and the square was cordoned off with metal fences. Also, special police forces and more police cars were patrolling the streets.

Russian Interior Ministry on Sunday confirmed that the police of Moscow were placed on alert and an additional police unit were dispatched to the city's south district of Biryulyovo, where angry demonstrators earlier in the day stormed a vegetable warehouse to press for handover of suspects involved in a murder case.

The demonstrators threw stones, bottles and metal rods at the warehouse before they broke into the venue to search for the ones whom they alleged to be responsible for killing Yegor Shcherbakov, a 25-year-old local man, the Interfax news agency reported.

The situation seemed to deteriorate after the police detained some of the demonstrators and more people were waved in to forcibly free the detained but to no avail, Xinhua reports.

Late Wednesday, an unidentified man reportedly approached Shcherbakov, who was with his girlfriend at the time, and fatally stabbed him after the two men had an argument. Shcherbako died on the spot and the assailant fled.

Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin has also ordered a thorough probe into Shcherbakov's death, for which, furious demonstrators blamed migrant workers, said his press secretary Gulnara Penkova, who pledged that those involved in the Biryulyovo unrest "must be prosecuted in accordance with the law."

Foreigners in Moscow were advised to refrain from going to public places in the city.