Russian youths escalate protest at Estonia embassy

MOSCOW, May 2 (Reuters) Russian youths protesting against Estonia's removal of a World War Two Red Army monument broke into a hall where the Baltic state's ambassador in Moscow was to hold a news conference today.

In an escalation of a week-long protest, a second group of protesters blocked the entrance to the Estonian embassy, preventing ambassador Marina Kaljurand from leaving for the news conference venue.

In Brussels, the European Commission expressed concern over the protests at the embassy and said the EU would formally raise the matter with Russia. In Tallinn, the Foreign Ministry said it had evacuated the family of diplomats and protested strongly.

''Physical attacks on the Estonian Republic's diplomatic representatives are unprecedented and absolutely unjustifiable.

These attacks call for immediate actions from the international community,'' Estonia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

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 1330 ist start of the news conference.

The ambassador's bodyguards used crowd control gas to clear the hall. Estonia said its ambassador's car was also attacked and its flag torn off.

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

The demonstrators, organised by Russian youth groups, were teenagers or in their early twenties.

''The attack was probably aimed at me, but as you see nobody came near enough, nobody touched me, everything is OK,'' said Kaljurand.

Pro-Kremlin youth activists have staged protests outside the Estonian embassy since last week when Estonia's government removed the Red Army memorial from the centre of Tallinn, in an action that has angered many Russians.

The move sparked riots in the Estonian capital between police and Russian-speaking Estonians, who said it was an insult to the memory of Soviet troops who died in World War Two.

Estonia has moved the bronze statue of a Red Army soldier to a military cemetery and opened it for visitors.

It said the statue had become a public order problem as a focus for Estonian and Russian nationalists and that it was more respectful to the dead to be buried in a cemetery.

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