Mongolia rolls out the red carpet for Putin despite war crimes allegations

“We tried to protest against the war criminal Putin, but then we were illegally detained here for five hours,” she told AFP.

Police Colonel N. Batbayar said the activists were arrested for ignoring warnings against entering a “security area set up during Putin's visit to the square.”

“It was not an arrest,” he told AFP, adding that seven people had been brought in to give statements.

Other protesters gathered about a block away from the Monument to the Politically Repressed, which commemorates those who suffered under decades of Soviet-backed communist rule in Mongolia.

Putin's visit comes on the occasion of the 85th anniversary of the decisive victory of the Mongolian and Soviet forces over Imperial Japan.