MOSCOW: Russian police today detained a group of around 20 journalists, including an AFP reporter, covering a central Moscow protest by the wives of men mobilised to fight in Ukraine.
A detained AFP video journalist said the Russian and foreign reporters were being transported in a van to a police station.
The group of all male reporters were detained as they covered and filmed the women walking up to Red Square.
Video footage showed police bringing reporters wearing yellow press vests to police vans.
For several weeks, the wives of mobilised men have been staging protests outside the Kremlin walls, demanding the men be brought home.
The movement has grown out of the anger of relatives of reservists sent to Ukraine under President Vladimir Putin's September 2022 mobilisation decree.
The movement -- extremely sensitive for authorities -- has so far gone unpunished.
It has been ignored by state media, with Russia having strict censorship laws.
The topic is especially uncomfortable for the Kremlin ahead of the March presidential election, in which Putin is running for a fifth Kremlin term.