MOSCOW, September 20. /TASS/. Police have detained three suspects after arson attacks on cars outside the Moscow office of a lawyer for Alexei Uchitel, the director of controversial movie about the last Russian tsar, Interior Ministry Spokeswoman Irina Volk told TASS.

"One of the suspects was detained in Moscow, and two others in the Lipetsk region," she said. Police have carried out searches in their houses, seizing items in connection with the investigation.

A law enforcement source said one of those detained is Alexander Kalinin, an Orthodox activist.

On September 11, two cars were set ablaze outside the office of Uchitel’s lawyer Konstantin Dobrynin in downtown Moscow. The attorney posted photos of the charred automobiles and notes left at the scene saying "Burn for Matilda" on his Facebook page.

A group calling itself "Christian State, Holy Russia" sent nearly a thousand letters with threats to movie theater owners across Russia, urging them to drop the screening of Matilda.

The film by Alexei Uchitel, which depicts a romance between Nicholas II and ballerina Matilda Kschessinska before his marriage and coronation, is set for release on October 26.