Police detained about 50 people in central Moscow on Tuesday, January 11 after calls by a nationalist movement for a rally.

The previously unknown December 11 Movement, named in apparent reference to last year's mass rioting near Red Square by nationalists and football hooligans, earlier called for a "Russia for Russians" rally at the central Manezhnaya Square at 7 pm Moscow time.

Police subsequently cordoned off a vast section of the square.

The Russian capital saw its biggest public disturbances for almost a decade when a 5,000-strong crowd of nationalists and football hooligans clashed with police at Manezhnaya Square on December 11.

Further disturbances followed three days later as ethnic Russians and internal migrants gathered for a confrontation near a major train terminus in Moscow. Race hate riots also occurred in St. Petersburg and other Russian cities, RIA Novosti reported.