Vandals painted swastikas on more than 100 Jewish and Tatar gravestones in a central Russian city and overturned many others – the latest in a string of anti-Semitic, racist and hate crime vandalism across the nation, police officials said Wednesday.

State-run television showed the ransacked Dmitrovo-Cherkasskoye Cemetery in Tver, about 100 miles northwest of Moscow, along with white-and-black paper swastika leaflets scattered about the gravestones.

More than 150 gravestones were vandalized, regional police chief Leonid Gagloyev said in televised comments. It was unclear when the vandalism took place; Russian television said it was the third time the cemetery had been vandalized.

“We think it was a planned action and the vandals are fascist groups, skinheads,” he was quoted as saying.

SPIC