However, they turned out to be officers from the Centre for Combating Extremism, a special unit within the Russian police
I have to admit, I do wonder whether that group's job is just going after homosexuals or whether they deal with all the stuff that the Russian government flagged as "extremist", like terrorism and suchlike too.
EDIT: Apparently they have an English-language Wikipedia page. Looks like it's the latter:
The Centre for Combating Extremism (Russian: Главное управление по противодействию экстремизму МВД России, romanized: Glavnoye upravleniye po protivodeystviyu ekstremizmu MVD Rossii), also known as Centre E (Russian: Центр «Э» [tsɛntr ɛ]) is a unit within the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.
The unit was established by decree No. 1316 of the President of the Russian Federation on 16 September 2008.[1] The unit has been especially active in the North Caucasus and also in Crimea following its annexation in 2014.[2] Their official focus is the suppression of extremism. The Centre E has been widely accused of prosecuting and harassing opposition groups, anti-regime bloggers, environmentalists and other civic activists.[3][4] One example of their work is the suppression of the Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia.[5]
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