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Buddhist Monks Detained in Moscow

Buddhist monks were detained in Moscow. Pixabay

Four Buddhist monks were detained in front of the Ukrainian Embassy in Moscow on Sunday, where they had come to pray for the victims of the shelling of a passenger bus in eastern Ukraine last week, the OVD-Info news site reported.

The monks — identified as Felix Shvedovsky, Yevgeny Shvedovsky, Timur Makhamatov and Sergei Yakushev — were detained while taking part in a vigil for the 12 victims of the shelling that took place near the city of Volnovakha in the Donetsk region, according to OVD-Info, an independent human rights media project that monitors protest activity in Russia.

They were reportedly taken to a police station in downtown Moscow, the report said.

The vigil coincided with Sunday's state-sponsored peace march in Kiev, which both Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk attended.

The shelling of the passenger bus also left 17 people injured, according to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Belligerents have agreed to conduct a joint investigation into the incident.

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