Protesters briefly stormed a local parliament building in Russia's North Caucasus on Wednesday, issuing a new challenge to the Kremlin's uncertain grip on the turbulent region, local media reported. About 150 demonstrators complaining of discrimination against their tiny ethnic group broke through a riot police cordon and blockaded themselves inside parliament in the Karachayevo-Cherkessiya province, reports said.
They left a few hours later after local governor Mustafa Batdyev met them and agreed to consider their demands for greater self-rule, the state-run RTR television station said.
President Vladimir Putin's envoy to the North Caucasus, Dmitry Kozak, condemned the protesters and said on television he would not tolerate "seizures of buildings or acts of hooliganism ... whatever the motivation."
The North Caucasus, a mainly Muslim patchwork of ethnic groups, which includes separatist Chechnya, has in recent months been swept by a wave of street protests targeting unpopular Kremlin-backed leaders.