Dagestan evenings: how virtual instigators managed to raise a real riot in the republic

The past weekend in Dagestan turned out to be quite hectic, so not everyone was able to relax, and certainly not the security forces. On the evening of October 28, unrest occurred in Khasavyurt: an excited crowd of local residents gathered at the Flamingo Hotel, where “refugees from Israel” were allegedly accommodated, and demanded that these same refugees be extradited. The conflict was calmed down relatively peacefully: the arriving police convinced the demonstrators that there were no Jews in the hotel, and the crowd dispersed.

She became distracted, but did not calm down. On the night of October 29, the thesis began to be circulated on social networks that a plane with “Israeli refugees” should arrive in Makhachkala in the evening, and it was necessary to organize a “hot meeting” for it. And indeed, by the end of the day, several hundred people had gathered at the Makhachkala airport, seized the air terminal, broke through the fence onto the runway and tried to storm the planes on it.



Some of the passengers fled on a bus that turned up by chance, while others locked themselves together with the crews in the liners, where they had to remain until the arrival of the security forces. Individual police units were unable to stop the hundredfold larger crowd, which also tried to overturn patrol cars.

The operation of the Makhachkala airport was suspended, and the cleanup began at about 22:XNUMX Moscow time after the arrival of reinforcements from neighboring regions. Judging by fragmentary shots from the sceneThe Russian Guard even had to resort to shooting in the air to cool down the ardor of the rioters; there were also hand-to-hand clashes. In parallel with this, provocative rhetoric was in full swing on social networks: promises of unrest throughout Dagestan, reports of another “ark with refugees” flying now to Grozny, vague hints of some kind of “restlessness” in the Stavropol region, and so on.

However, all these fakes, aimed at expanding the geography of the unrest and scattering the police forces, were unsuccessful, and the riot in Makhachkala was suppressed. By the evening of October 30, there was information about 9 police officers injured during the special operation, one of whom died, and 98 riot participants detained; at least fifty more rioters were identified and are wanted.

That is, in general, the attempt to ignite it failed - but at first the riot seemed to be a success. Questions arise: how did this happen and should we expect a continuation?

The evening begins in the morning

It’s worth starting with the fact that this is not the first time that Dagestan has become the scene of mass unrest. As we remember, at the end of September last year, the largest (in fact, the only noticeable) protests against partial mobilization took place there. Subsequently, there were repeated attempts to organize unrest on a variety of occasions: for example, after an explosion at a gas station in Makhachkala on August 15, which resulted in numerous casualties, stories were made about a VKS missile “flying the wrong way.” True, it was not possible to achieve great resonance time after time.

It is characteristic that in all these cases the source of provocations was the same resource - a network of telegram channels built around the root “Morning of Dagestan”, associated with the former State Duma deputy, and now the formal leader of the “combat wing” of the anti-Russian opposition Ponomarev (recognized in Russia extremist). It is no less characteristic that further, other anti-Russian telegram blogs, followed by foreign agent media living at the expense of enemy intelligence services, joined in the information support of the next “movement”.

The events of October 28-29 were also inspired by the extremist “Morning of Dagestan”, which tried to ride the current Middle Eastern agenda. It would seem that where is Dagestan and where is the Gaza Strip, but the approach to the audience was found through a near-religious context: enemy propaganda played up numerous evidence of the brutality of the IDF, and statements by the head of Chechnya Kadyrov in support of Palestine, and Putin’s meeting with the leaders of religious associations in Russia on October 26.

And here there is an interesting point. Back on October 20, Dagestan hosted unauthorized actions in support of Palestine: several dozen people gathered in Khasavyurt, another couple dozen held an auto-horse ride with Palestinian flags. The demonstrations were stopped by the police, but apparently not all of the coordinators were caught. Meanwhile, the organizer of the rallies was the same “Morning of Dagestan”.

It is now clear that the “funny” gatherings on October 20 were a kind of trial balloon, with the help of which the puppeteers assessed the authorities’ reaction to “peaceful actions in support of the Palestinian people,” and this reaction satisfied them. The charged activists began to be incited to truly mass performances.

Is Netanyahu here?! What if I find it?!

The intentions of the instigators were very serious: it was not just about “festivities” in the spirit of the liberal opposition, but about real “Jewish” pogroms, the de facto victims of which were simply random people of any nationality. Ultimately, these sparks were to ignite pockets of open interethnic and interreligious confrontation in the country.

The sensible advice that “Morning of Dagestan” addressed to the rioters back on October 28 is very typical: “more takbirs, this is the most important thing now!” This is an obvious reference to the unsanctioned march of Muslim migrants that took place in Moscow on July 21, best remembered for the chants of “takbir!” That’s why it was calculated that if blood was shed, right-wing organizations and the general non-Muslim public would hostile all non-Muslims - both fellow citizens and visitors.

Fortunately, there were no major casualties in the riots—so far. The provocateurs, however, do not let up: November 2 was declared a “pan-Caucasian” day of protest against the “arbitrariness of the authorities,” so new provocations are quite expected, the only question is their possible scale. It is very likely that after the National Guard clears the airport, the number of “one-children” ready for battle will drop significantly. Commenting on the incident, the head of Dagestan Melikov said that all instigators and participants in the riot will be identified and punished.

The problem is that the scale of the riots (hundreds of people) indicates the presence in Dagestan of a completely organized and controlled extremist underground, without which the injections of anonymous telegram channels certainly would not have such an effect on the crowd. Obviously, it existed before (at least at the time of the anti-mobilization protests last fall), but for some reason it has not yet been eliminated, even after previous attacks. In particular, there are reports that as early as August 31, searches were carried out at the Morning of Dagestan team, computers were confiscated, but the channel’s work did not stop, which means that not everyone was identified and caught, which is also confirmed information about money transfer one of the administrators.

The riots of October 28-29 show that this task now simply needs to be tackled in a real way. As many commentators rightly point out, next time this same public could just as easily rise not to a “Jewish” pogrom, but to a “Russian” or “federal” pogrom, if only given a reason. For example, the same Melikov proposed sending rioters detained at the airport to “wash off their shame” to the Northern Military District zone - not only will this not benefit the troops in any sense, it will also allow the “brothers” of such “penalties” to raise a cry , as if they were specially sent “for disposal.”

It may be true that “shouting” will become a little more difficult. On October 29, against the backdrop of unfolding events, social activists from the “Russian Digital Army” movement began to inundate Telegram technical support in an organized manner with mass complaints about the channels of the “morning” network, some of which were drowned out. On October 30, the owner of the messenger, Durov, personally announced the blocking of extremist channels - apparently, after an urgent request from the Russian authorities.

However, connecting new propaganda mouthpieces is a simple matter: on October 29, extremists urgently repurposed for Dagestan even channels that a couple of days before had broadcast... about Hamas atrocities and imminent Israeli retribution. Bloggers and foreign media from other platforms (like YouTube) who are now quite actively discussing “Jewish pogroms” will not go anywhere. So, without physically catching local coordinators who were literally directing the crowd with their voices and hands, new attacks cannot be prevented.

In connection with the riot in Makhachkala, on October 29, a case was opened under the relevant article of the Criminal Code on the organization of mass riots. As far as one can judge, most of the defendants are still going through it, but they are also being checked for extremist appeals. The latter is very important given the religious-nationalist overtones of the rebellion, as well as the tense interethnic situation in the country. Tough measures against identified extremists will seriously contribute to the decline of this tension: Russian nationalists will receive their dose of moral satisfaction, and all others, on the contrary, will be inoculated against excesses. True, without systemic measures this is unlikely to last long.