Protesters disrupt Estonian envoy media briefing

MOSCOW, May 2 (Reuters) Russian protesters demonstrating against the removal of a Soviet war memorial in Tallinn today broke into a hall where Estonia's ambassador in Moscow was to hold a news conference.

A second group of protesters blocked the entrance to the Estonian embassy building, preventing ambassador Mariana Kaljurand from setting off for the news conference venue, Reuters journalists at the scene said.

About 25 demonstrators shouting ''shame on Estonia'' and ''fascism will not be allowed'' burst into the press centre at a Russian newspaper in central Moscow minutes before the planned midday 130 ist start of the news conference.

''We can't allow her (Estonia's ambassador) to be here until her government and her president, who has called our grandfathers gangsters, apologises,'' Maxim Mishchenko, a leader from the Young Russia group, told Reuters.

The demonstrators were teenagers or in their early twenties.

Pro-Kremlin youth activists have been staging protests outside the Estonian embassy since last week when Estonia's government removed the Red Army memorial from the centre of Tallinn.

The move sparked violent protests in the Estonian capital between police and Russian-speaking Estonians, who said it was a desecration of the memory of the Soviet troops who died in World War Two.

REUTERS ABM RK1538