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VOLGOGRAD, May 17 (RIA Novosti) - One person has been arrested at an unauthorized meeting to protest the arrival of a NATO delegation in the southern Russian city of Volgograd, the local communist party branch said Wednesday.
About 30 people picketed the building of the Volgograd Academy of Civil Service, where an international conference on NATO-Russia relations opened Wednesday.
The conference is part of a series of Russia-NATO events that began on May 11 in the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok and will end on May 26 in Russia's Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad.
The protestors, largely Communist Party members of the Volgograd city council, said they were protesting against the presence of NATO representatives in their city.
"We are demonstrating against the presence of NATO, which acts as an invader. This involves Iraq, Yugoslavia and other countries," said Sergei Mazanov, the press secretary of the local communist party branch.
According to Mazanov, the detained man is helping police with their enquiries.
