MOSCOW, October 15 /TASS/. A correspondent of the All-Russian Television and Radio Broadcasting Network (VGTRK), Nikolay Vasilyev, and his shooting crew have been detained on the Estonian border, a VGTRK spokesperson told TASS.

He said the Estonian border guards had taken away the papers, telephones and professional equipment from the Russian journalists.

In an interview aired by the Rossiya 24 TV news channel, Vasilyev said that Estonian law enforcers had paid attention to the shooting crew a few days earlier when the journalists were making a footage about a mass demonstration in the centre of Tallinn at which protesters demanded tighter border control. Estonian police approached the journalists and took the personal information from them.

According to Vasilyev, the Estonian border guards told them they had sent an inquiry to Finland and Lithuania to check if the visas that had been issued to the journalists were authentic. They promised to carry out one more examination upon getting a reply.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the Russian Embassy in Tallinn would join the investigation.

She said the detention of VGTRK shooting crew looked like "physical censorship".

"It looks very much like another manifestation of physical and political censorship when not just restrictions are imposed on the work of journalists but physical methods are applied," Zakharova told the Rossiya 24 TV news channel on Thursday.