10/31/2023 – Translated from Ukrainian via Google and OFP

Russia boasted of the speedy suppression of anti-Semitic riots in Makhachkala. And the head of the aggressor country, Vladimir Putin, immediately transferred the blame for these events to Ukraine, which “wanted to provoke pogroms in the Russian Federation under the leadership of the West.”

And only a small part of Russian officials directly condemned the direct participants in the riots and regional authorities for ignoring anti-Semitic sentiments in Dagestan. Given this, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says the situation has only highlighted the growing radicalization and factionalization of Russian society due to hypernationalist ideologies intensified by the war against Ukraine.

Let us recall that the unrest in the capital of Dagestan began on October 29 , when a crowd of men with Palestinian flags and anti-Semitic slogans surrounded the Tel Aviv-Makhachkala plane and others at Uytash airport. Passengers on several flights were stranded on board for many hours. At the same time, the protesters managed to destroy and rob shops and warehouses on the territory of the airport.

Because of these events, the Russian Guard announced that the airport would be closed until November 6, but then reduced the deadline to October 31. The day before this date, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation boasted that the riots in Makhachkala had been suppressed; law enforcement officers had already “restored order at the airport” after discovering more than 150 participants in the pogroms and detaining 60 of them.

The department admitted that the rowdies injured at least nine police officers, and other rioters are still being sought. Propagandists claimed that the protesters threw stones at the police, and they responded by “shooting in the air.”

The head of Dagestan, Sergei Melikov, said that he “personally inspected” the Makhachkala airport, which received “minor damage,” and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the National Guard used physical force “as a last resort, hoping to reasonably calm the crowd.”

He also assured that it was “unknown foreign actors” together with “pro-Ukrainian Telegram channels” who were trying to “destabilize” his region . According to him, the Telegram channel, which published alleged rumors about the arrival of “Israeli refugees” in Dagestan, “was directed from the territory of Ukraine.”

The same rhetoric was repeated by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. During a meeting with members of the Russian Security Council on October 30, he said that the demonstrations in Makhachkala were “inspired, including through social networks, from the territory of Ukraine by Western intelligence services.” He also expressed his conviction that “the West is trying to use” regional conflicts to “break Russia from within,” and therefore instructed local authorities to take “decisive, timely and clear actions to protect the constitutional system of the Russian Federation, the rights and freedoms of citizens, interethnic and interreligious harmony.”

At the same time, Putin did not specify what measures his terrorist state would take to resolve interreligious conflicts and anti-Semitism on its territory. Its speaker, Dmitry Peskov, also did not comment on measures against demonstrators. Other Kremlin officials largely simply repeated similar statements from Putin and refrained from directly condemning the rioters.

“The Kremlin’s narrative about foreign involvement in the unrest is likely an attempt to distract from international criticism of anti-Semitism and growing hostility towards ethnic and religious minorities in Russia,” ISW said.

They emphasized that only a minority of Russian officials directly condemned the rioters and regional authorities for ignoring anti-Semitic sentiments in Dagestan. Melikov stated that they “betrayed the Russian military” who are fighting in Ukraine, “playing for the enemy,” and noted that he was ashamed of the unrest. And State Duma deputy Vasily Vlasov criticized him and the rest of the Dagestan authorities in general for ignoring anti-Semitic sentiments and unrest that lasted three days. Without naming names, he added that “regional officials should be fired” from their positions because they failed to warn those events in a timely manner.

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War concluded that the unrest in Makhachkala highlights the growing radicalization and factionalism of Russian society due to hypernationalist ideologies intensified by the war in Ukraine. Director of the NATO Center of Excellence for Strategic Communications Janis Sarts also stated that the events in the capital of Dagestan are one of the manifestations of the radicalization of Russian society as a result of the war against Ukraine and the surrounding media environment. According to him, Russian media incited hatred towards Ukrainians, the West and Israel, and many of the dead Russian soldiers who fought against the Ukrainian Armed Forces came from Dagestan.

Even one Russian blogger also hinted that the Kremlin’s attempts to blame the unrest on foreign psychological and information operations allow officials in the Russian Federation to avoid responsibility for helping to increase radical sentiments among the Russian Muslim population.

ISW previously assessed that hypernationalist ideologies promoted by the Kremlin as justification for war will continue to have domestic consequences for Russia, especially in ethnic minority communities.

As OBOZ.UA reported, NATO expressed the belief that anti-Semitic actions in Dagestan were the result of Russian propaganda based on the rhetoric of hatred and incitement of interethnic intolerance. At the same time, the Alliance believes that such events are generally disadvantageous to the Kremlin.

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