A pro-Kremlin newspaper has called for robotic riot cops to be used against demonstrators if more anti-corruption protests take place without government approval.

Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda said that police could use robots to shower protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets in a bid to subdue unauthorized gatherings.

"There really is enough money to suppress any illegal rally or large-scale provocation in the Internal Affairs Ministry arsenal," the newspaper wrote. "There are cars with water cannons, and guns that shoot tear gas and light-and-noise grenades."

The article also claimed that officers could use armed robots to harness these weapons without "putting themselves at risk." "Kicking a robot is useless - and it hurts your feet," the newspaper said.

The newspaper made the claims after top Russian official publicly pledged to unleash the country's full police arsenal on future unapproved protests.



"If these 'provocations' begin to appear more frequently, we can put the expansive arsenal at our disposal into play,” the deputy chief of Russia's Internal Affairs Ministry Igor Zubov told the TASS news agency.



He also said that the riot police who patrolled central Moscow on Sunday had been instructed to keep the number of arrests to a minimum and not to use force.