Around 1,000 Communist supporters led by Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov gathered in Moscow for an authorized rally amid a heavy police presence.
In Kyiv, police detained three people after smoke bombs were hurled at Communist supporters marching down the main street.
Some 2,000 police had been deployed in Kyiv to prevent possible clashes between Communists and nationalists commemorating victims of the Soviet regime. The Communist rally, however, ended peacefully with the mostly elderly participants laying flowers at a statue to the Soviet Union's founder, Vladimir Lenin.
In the western city of Lviv, there were fistfights between Communists and nationalists but there were no reports of arrests.
(UNIAN, Interfax, dpa)
