Day: November 18, 2023

Sen. Menendez Applauds President Biden’s Historic Nomination of Adeel Mangi to Serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit

Officials in the mostly Muslim North Caucasus region of Daghestan have filed about 340 cases in connection with a violent mob attack on the airport in the regional capital, Makhachkala, on the evening of October 29. More than 20 people, including several law-enforcement officers, were injured in the rampage, which caused damage estimated at hundreds of millions of rubles.

Although the mob of hundreds was shouting anti-Semitic slogans and searching for an aircraft from Israel that they believed was carrying Jewish refugees from the Gaza war, all of the charges have been for relatively minor administrative offenses, including violating rules for conducting demonstrations, disobeying a police officer, and petty hooliganism.

But many of the Kremlin’s most militant and outspoken social media supporters — the so-called Z military correspondents after the Latin letter Z that has become one of the Kremlin’s signs of support for the invasion of Ukraine and Moscow’s policies generally — have balked at what they perceive to be the authorities’ leniency toward the rioters, calling for suspects to be charged with terrorism, extremism, or ethnically motivated hate crimes.

“Or are these exclusively ‘Russian’ articles [of the Criminal Code] under which only persons of a certain ethnicity are imprisoned?” wrote one pro-Kremlin Telegram channel on November 2, suggesting the state would impose more serious charges on ethnic Russian suspects in a similar situation.

Law enforcement officers ensure security at the airport in Makhachkala on October 31.

“I wonder if some good Russian people decided to have a little pogrom against the administration in the Samara region after Governor [Dmitry] Azarov banned [a Russian] Orthodox procession for the holiday of the Kazan Mother of God icon, would they be given ‘administrative’ charges or charged with hate crimes?” wrote another, echoing that idea on November 5

Others called for a return to “traditions,” under which, they argued, protesters who disobeyed the authorities were subject to “capital punishment in the most exquisite form.”

The reaction is a sign of what analysts say is the potential danger of the Kremlin’s policy of tacitly supporting Hamas, which has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.

“The federal authorities thought they could unleash a peaceful process against Zionism, but their propaganda has already ramped up the degree of hatred within Russian society to incredible heights,” said political scientist Mikhail Savva. “Hatred is a black box, and its consequences can be unpredictable and uncontrollable.”

‘Against Other People Doing It’

The objections of the pro-Kremlin bloggers have nothing to do with a desire to combat anti-Semitism, said writer Ivan Filippov, who studies pro-Kremlin social media channels. Although those channels espouse a hodgepodge of ideologies and predilections, they are united by two things, Filippov added: loyalty to President Vladimir Putin and militant Russian nationalism.

“Xenophobia is their uniting characteristic,” he told RFE/RL’s Caucasus.Realities. “Whether you are talking about xenophobia against Daghestanis or Jews or Armenians, they will always be on the same side of the barricades. Whenever there is a need to unite against some ‘foreigners,’ they forget about all their differences.”

“They are really angry because they think the authorities are afraid and so are punishing the Daghestanis lightly or not at all,” he added. “Their reaction to the pogrom is: ‘We don’t care that Jews were beaten. We are just against other people doing it.'”

The channels have fully endorsed the Kremlin’s baseless narrative about the supposed need to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, while at the same time trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes.

In addition, the pro-Kremlin channels see the Daghestan mob as a serious affront to Russian stability and social order, analyst Savva said.

“It is not condemnation for the crime,” he explained. “It is condemnation for crossing the lines the authorities have laid down.”

‘Degrees Of Culpability’

Idris Yusupov, a journalist with the Daghestani publication Novoye Delo, said the objections of the pro-Kremlin bloggers reflect a lack of understanding of the local environment.

“People have a right to their opinion,” he said. “But we should consider how accurate their opinions are. I think the reaction of the authorities has been quite efficient.”

A still from video footage shows pro-Palestinian protesters storming the airport building in Makhachkala on October 29.

He noted that Investigative Committee head Aleksandr Bastrykin took charge of the investigation immediately and a criminal investigation was opened into alleged mass public disorder. The calls for moderation that were heard from prominent Muslims, including a group of Daghestan clerics and the chief mufti of Tatarstan, Yusupov said, were motivated by a fear that the authorities would crack down indiscriminately.

“The general thrust of these appeals was that they need to get to the bottom of things rather than just rounding up several hundred people who may have played no role in the violence,” he said.

Yusupov’s own home was searched on October 30 as investigators sought information about a Telegram channel that published calls for people to descend on the airport.

Aleksandr Karavayev, a researcher with the Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Economics, offered a similar assessment of the investigation.

“It would have been much easier for them to just reduce the whole thing to a matter of hooliganism and not go into degrees of culpability,” he said. “But it is important to note that investigators are taking into account that the vast majority were not instigators.”

“We are seeing an attempt to filter out the bulk of the crowd as part of the process of identifying the organizers,” he concluded.

RFE/RL’s Robert Coalson contributed to this report.

With the death of Yevgeny Prgozhin, the leader of the brutal Wagner Group, Russia seems determined to allow the mercenaries to operate in Africa, particularly in Mali and the Central African Republic.

Murders, theft of resources and rape characterize the Wagner Group’s operations as it works closely with the leaders of certain African nations to prop them up against domestic rebellions and Islamic State fighters. The group finances itself by exploiting natural resources, such as small gold mines in Mali. But their presence in Mali is a failure so far.

Now what?

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement of a mandatory oath for employees of Wagner and other private military contractors was a clear move to bring such groups under tighter state control, reports Reuters.

Other analysts, including the Russian-born American journalist, Julia Ioffe, believe the G.R.U., or intelligence unit, may take over Wagner, as the unit already has an operation in Mali. At this point, its strategy is unclear.

One way or another, Russia wants to keep its foothold in Mali, as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the Russia Today program on June 26. According to the Mali specialist Joe Penney, Lavrov said that Wagner would remain in Mali and the Central African Republic, adding: “This situation cannot change the strategic relationship between Russia and its African partners.”

Mali made international news in March 2022 when it battled Islamists in the town of Moura, killing everyone in sight. At least 500 people were murdered by the Malian army and Wagner fighters. Executions, rape and torture were common, subjecting at least 58 women to sexual violence.

Sanctions have been imposed against individual Wagner members by the United States and the European Union. But the group has not yet been listed as a terrorist militia.

How to relocate?

Now the agreed withdrawal of UN peacekeepers, known as Minusma, by Dec. 31, has brought to light other grave problems.

El-Ghassim Wane, the UN special representative for Mali, told the Security Council on Monday that closing the mission entails the repatriation of 12,947 uniformed personnel, the separation of 1,786 civilian staff, the repatriation and/or relocation of a load of approximately 5,500 sea containers of UN-owned equipment and almost 4,000 vehicles and the handover of 12 camps.

Mali’s junta, which seized power in coups in 2020 and 2021, welcomed Wagner in 2021. But there is no way Minusma can leave by the end of this year with all its equipment, so it will aim to carry out a full “liquidation” over 18 months into 2025. The UN mission also needs to traverse turbulent Niger.

It is rare for the UN to mention the Wagner group by name, referring to it instead as an armed militia or other euphemism. Not so the US, France, Britain and Albania in the Security Council publicly. A notable UN exception is the Geneva-based human rights office.

As the first battalion of UN peacekeepers was withdrawing recently, their convoy was attacked twice at the Ber camp in northern Mali, injuring four soldiers and damaging three vehicles.

“Minusma’s withdrawal limits the ability of the international community to protect civilians from the predations of Wagner, whose activities contribute to greater insecurity in the country,” US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council.

France, a former colonial power in the Sahel region, had been ordered to pull its troops out a year before by Mali. Its deputy UN representative, Nathalie Broadhurst, called the clashes in Ber with the participation of Wagner mercenaries “a serious violation of the ceasefire.”

Despite the UN’s decades-plus emphasis on Mali, the literature shows that the Wagner group has been unsuccessful in the last year or so, especially compared with its intervention in the Central African Republic.

Who are the Wagner fighters?

Often they are Russians from poorer neighborhoods, but also Armenians, Kazakhs and Moldavians. Some are prisoners, induced by funds and a promise of parole if they survive their time in Wagner.

They have been called “the musicians.” The name was invented by Dmitri Utkin, a Wagner commander. He was on the same plane that crashed with Prigozhin.

The French news agency AFP describes Utkin as having had a Nazi SS symbol tattooed on both sides of his neck. Hitler was a huge fan of the German composer Richard Wagner and many observers see this nom de guerre as another indication of Utkin’s Nazi sympathies. (Paradoxically, one reason that Putin has launched his war on Ukraine, he says repeatedly, is to wipe out the “Nazis” in the country.)

In a new 104-page report, the UN panel of experts on Mali also avoided fingering Wagner but referred to the group as “The Whites/Les Blancs” or foreigners. The panel believes that violence against women and other forms of grave abuses of human rights and international humanitarian law are being used specifically by the foreign security partners to spread terror among populations. Islamic State extremists have almost doubled the territory they control in Mali in less than a year, the panel said, another indication of Wagner’s incompetency.

Central African Republic

In the Central African Republic (CAR), the Wagner Group, since 2018, has been propping up the weak government of President Faustin-Archange Touadéra, whose writ extends little beyond the capital, against and gold mining licenses. The Russian security company has been widely accused of perpetrating severe human rights violations and harassing peacekeepers, journalists, aid workers and minorities.

“Wagner’s presence puts the CAR government at odds with the United Nations and the Western governments, which increasingly demand that the CAR end its dealing with the Russian company or risk losing their assistance,” the Brookings Institution said.

The Wagner Group expanded its role in Africa’s Sahel region by seizing on its years-long slide fed by widened extremist and ethnic insurgencies, seven military coups, populations uprooted and unsuccessful international interventions. “These conditions have let Wagner offer weapons, mercenaries and other support to a half-dozen authoritarian (mostly military-led) governments that face isolation,” concluded the US Institute of Peace.

Evelyn Leopold