Club goers were briefly held and their passports were photographed during the raids late on Friday, Telegram channel Ostorozhno Novosti said.

"In the middle of the party, the music was stopped, and [police] began going into the lounges", one eyewitness told the outlet, adding that foreigners were also present at the gathering in central Moscow.

The raids came a day after Russia's Supreme Court declared what it described as the "LGBT public movement" an extremist organisation and banned its activities across the country.

In recent years the country's LGBT community has come under increasing pressure from the authorities, says the BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Moscow.

Earlier this month, one Russian TV channel discoloured a rainbow in a South Korean pop video, to avoid being accused of violating the "gay propaganda" law.

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