“An extremely profitable topic.” Why are they showing a harsh reaction to conflicts with the participation of Caucasians in Moscow?
In early October, three natives of Dagestan severely beat a young man in the Moscow metro. A month later, in the west of Moscow, four people from the Caucasus attacked a man with a child. Both incidents are widely discussed and attract the attention of high-ranking officials. Political scientists interviewed by the BBC believe that the wide resonance around these conflicts is in many ways beneficial to the Russian authorities, since it increases the prestige of the security forces in the eyes of citizens and at the same time distracts people from more pressing problems.
Participants in the brawl at the Pervomayskaya metro station on October 4 were initially charged under the article “hooliganism”, but later the charges were reclassified to tougher articles – about attempted murder and the threat of violence to a representative of the government. Roman Kovalev, who was injured during the fight, received an award from the Investigative Committee and a large cash prize from the Moscow mayor’s office.
After the fight in New Moscow on November 4, the case was also re-qualified from “hooliganism” to “attempted murder” at the request of the head of the TFR Alexander Bastrykin.
Soon after the second incident, the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, publicly outraged that the media and, in particular, the chief editor of the state-funded pro-Kremlin TV channel RT Margarita Simonyan, while covering the incident, focused on the ethnicity of the participants in the fight.
On Monday, the press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, said that the Kremlin does not see a national motive in the two resonant fights.
“In fact, it is about violations committed by Russian citizens. he noted.
The BBC Russian Service asked political scientists.
Abbas Gallyamov, political scientist
For the Russian authorities, this is an attempt to find the political ground under their feet, to resonate with public sentiments. Ratings are falling, and something needs to be done about it.
The authorities cannot punish electoral fraud or abuse in the FSIN system.
I think the trend will continue, because it works: there is a growing belief among people that this power can act fairly.
I see no reason here to say that the authorities are trying to straddle Russian ethnic nationalism. Rather, it is about a simple fear of the common man in front of the violence from the side of the criminals. This is an attempt to verify that the slogans of law and order that the regime uses in the fight against the opposition give something to the average person – a sense of security, for example.
Ekaterina Shulman, political scientist
Of course, the ground for a public and media response to such events exists. Judging by the results of opinion polls, citizens are worried about the problem of migrants; many have a dislike for those ethnic groups that are considered to allow themselves and are less subject to legal punishment.
She violates their rights.
The state in the broadest sense and the authorities have the opportunity to act as a mediator and savior – defenders from threats.
After all, if we look at the latest opinion polls about the fears of Russians, we will see that it is the fears of state violence that occupy one of the first places: fears of reprisals, of police violence, of a tightening of the political regime. Over the past three years, these fears have gone beyond the politicized public in the capitals.
In 2021, the arbitrariness of the authorities was constantly feared, according to polls, 58% of respondents – this is the absolute maximum since 1994. 52% of the respondents are constantly afraid of a return to mass repression – more than attacks by criminals or poverty.
Against this background, any conflict in which citizens confront citizens, it seems to the state machine, is not only not dangerous, but also useful.
Konstantin Kalachev, Head of the Political Expert Group
It seems that the authorities are concerned about the growth of their rating. In society, the topic of xenophobia and rejection of Caucasians has long gone to the periphery, so this is just a tool for switching the darkness that really worries people: for example, problems of prices, incomes, problems of covid and the authorities in this regard.
Of course, the image of an enemy – not only external, but also internal – can be beneficial to someone, it helps to consolidate society. In some regions of Moscow, there are ethnic problems that pose serious problems, but this is not clear.
So far, this is just another state PR company. However, the result can be completely different, and the consequences can be unpleasant.
Andrey Kolesnikov, Head of the Russian Domestic Policy and Political Institutions Program, Carnegie Moscow Center
I think that this is just a familiar chain of similar events, but high-ranking characters openly in social networks provoke the feeling that this is some kind of planned and thought-out point of view that something must be done with Caucasians and that this is practically state policy.
In fact, I think that there is no consensus here, there are different opinions, but such expressed by officials still inspire fears of a new wave of xenophobia.
The problem is that we still have not developed a single national policy and there is no single decision-making center. Now in Russia I do not see an explosion of xenophobic sentiments, but this is a dormant trend that can re-emerge for any reason.
Mikhail Vinogradov, President of the Petersburg Politics Foundation
In the summer, on the eve of the elections, there was already such an attempt to draw attention to the problems of immigrants from Central Asia, but it did not receive a noticeable resonance and continuation. As for the topic of Caucasians, there is a dissonance between obvious everyday problems and the unwillingness to raise this topic publicly.
That is why social networks start up and explode with incidents – they are poorly spoken, and there is no language in which to describe the problem. Despite the fact that there is a problem in the coexistence of the Russian population and the Caucasian diasporas.
Therefore, in the actions of the authorities, there is more a reaction to an outburst of interest in the topic and a demonstration that the authorities did not act idle (like with a covid), rather than an element of a purposeful strategy.