Earlier this year, police detained a number of LGBT rights activists after they were attacked by a group of homophobic vegans at a demonstration in St. Petersburg.

This past May, officials banned an LGBT rights group from marching alongside other organizations during the city's annual May Day parade.

The group was invited instead to join the "green bloc column" of independent trade unions, animal rights activists, vegetarians and proponents of city-beautification efforts in an unofficial parade off the main route.

The "green bloc" reportedly asked the LGBT participants to refrain from flaunting or displaying rainbow symbols, citing "security concerns."

On the day of the event, however, several LGBT activists arrived with rainbow pride flags, defying the groups' demands. The activists were asked to lower their flags, but refused, which caused a fight to break out.

As the violence escalated, Dmitry Veganov, a representative of the vegan V-Club society, snatched one of the flags from the hands of an LGBT rights activist and snapped it across his knee. Police heard the noise and rushed to the scene, where they promptly arrested four of the gay rights marchers.

“The greens were so worried about their own skin that it led them to be aggressive themselves,” Olga Bakhaeva, one of the activists detained in the fight, told reporters. “If, in a parallel universe, they ended up in our place, they'd have joined our column and brought out their stuff, too.”

The event occurred as anti-LGBT sentiment continues to spread throughout Russia, whose government not only recently pushed for a bill that would make coming out illegal, but conspired to remove language calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality worldwide from a UN resolution.

h/t: Meduza