MOSCOW, October 28. /TASS/: Moscow’s law enforcement agencies have successfully countered attempts of staging mass riots in the Russian capital, the city mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, told a meeting devoted to preventing crimes on Monday.
The Moscow mayor recalled that dozens of peaceful demonstrations and rallies took place in Moscow but several unauthorized events were also held.
"And the fact that they [unauthorized rallies] did not escalate into grave consequences that we see in other cities across the world is not the merit of their organizers - on the contrary, they wanted to escalate these events and bring them to a critical point. This is the merit of law enforcement agencies, which ensured order on Moscow streets," Sobyanin said.
The mayor recalled that street protests have been on the rise across the globe in 2019. "This year we see a growing number of street riots in the world <...> we see the outcome of riots on Kiev’s Maidan. In fact, the country [Ukraine] is feverish over these consequences that have had an economic, social and political effect," Sobyanin emphasized.
Besides, serious street protests, resulting in casualties, hit Hong Kong, the symbol of capitalism, as well as the world’s biggest tourism city of Paris, Barcelona, which is known as a very calm city, and Libya, he noted.
In comment on the effort carried out by Russian police and the National Guard officers in Moscow, Sobyanin stressed that law enforcement agencies have also ensured security at many cultural events, which were attended by millions of Muscovites and tourists.
