The events that unfolded on Sunday afternoon at Makhachkala Airport, when radicals broke into the main terminal and onto the runway in search of Jews allegedly arriving from Israel to Russia’s Dagestan, were quite predictable. And it’s not even because just on Saturday, similar incidents took place in Khasavyurt, when a crowd of radicals raided a local hotel in search of Jewish guests who had allegedly checked in while the so-called law enforcers did nothing at all to stop that mess.
They were predictable since xenophobia and misanthropy are the main building blocks of modern-day Russia. What’s also important is that impunity for expressing those has further intensified enmity toward anyone who dares look, talk, or think differently.
It’s Russia’s historical tradition to have all domestic issues compensated for by cultivating hate toward ethnic groups other than the Russians and religions other than Orthodox Christianity. When propaganda fails to send the Russians a clear signal, who they should hate beyond Russia’s borders, people who have long got hooked up on enmity start hating each other – their own neighbors from other federal districts or regions.
In the 1990s, the Russian government managed to shift public attention away from the severe economic crisis, practically for an entire decade, by periodically allowing citizens to vent toward the so-called “individuals from Caucasus.” Xenophobia has become a real lifesaver for the incompetent thieves in Kremlin offices, and after Vladimir Putin came to power, these processes further intensified. Indeed, under Putin, conflicts on ethnic grounds were not only skillfully exploited, they were catalyzed, and interethnic enmity was only encouraged.
It was under Putin that the Partizan center was set up under the FSB auspices just outside St. Petersburg, where hundreds of neo-Nazis from all over the world have been undergoing combat training. Run by the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM), the center is provided with everything the trainees might need to practice urban warfare tactics. Many of the “graduates” subsequently resurface in hot spots, including as part of Wagner Group.
Also, St. Petersburg became a new home for Rinaldo Nazarro, the founder and leader of The Base, an American paramilitary neo-Nazi group. The guy fled from American justice to Russia, where he doesn’t even hide his whereabouts, knowing the FBI won’t get him there.
It was in Russia that hosted the International Russian Conservative Forum, which brought together members of leading neo-Nazi and ultra-right parties from 11 European countries. The event was organized by the Rodina party, which had once conceived an infamous Russian politician Dmitry Rogozin, who before skyrocketing up the career ladder was a regular participant in various neo-Nazi gatherings.
It was under Putin that the neo-Nazi organization Russian Image operated in Russia for years, which eventually became a core base for BORN, the group engaged in armed robberies and contract killings, including in the interests of the Russian security services. By the way, certain journalists with the from Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper affiliated with the Russian defense ministry, are tied with the group.
It was under Putin that Russian intelligence agencies have been actively sponsoring European neo-Nazi organizations, such as Golden Dawn (Greece); National Democratic Party of Germany; Attack (Bulgaria); Lombardy League and New Force (both Italy); the British National Party; the Swedes Party; The Danish party, and many, many others.
Aleksandr Kovalenko