The Russian presidency (Kremlin) on Monday attributed the anti-Semitic incidents in Dagestan to external interference, without identifying the origin, but the leader of the southwestern Russian republic stated that it was Ukraine.
Hundreds of people invaded the main airport of the Muslim-majority republic on Sunday following calls on the Telegram network to search for Jewish passengers on a flight from Israel, in a protest against the war in the Gaza Strip.
“Yesterday’s events [domingo] around Makhachkala airport are largely the result of external interference, including informational influence,” the Kremlin spokesman said.
Dmitri Peskov announced that President Vladimir Putin has called a meeting for this Monday evening to “discuss Western attempts to use events in the Middle East to divide Russian society.”
Peskov did not specify the source of the alleged interference, but Dagestan leader Sergei Melikov said the riots were organized from Ukraine, without providing any evidence.
“Today we receive [segunda-feira] absolutely reliable information that the ‘Dagestan Mornings’ channel is managed and regulated from the territory of Ukraine,” said Melikov, quoted by the Spanish agency EFE.
Dagestan authorities said more than two dozen people were injured during an intervention by security forces at the airport, which was closed, and that 60 people were detained.
Nine of the injured were police officers and two of them were hospitalized, according to the Interior Ministry department for the North Caucasus federal district.
The Russian aviation agency announced this Monday that Makhachkala airport “is back in full operation”, after having been closed on Sunday due to the incidents.
Melikov said he was embarrassed by the riots and suggested that participants wash away their honor by “joining a volunteer battalion or signing a contract with the army” to fight in Ukraine.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, triggering a war that caused thousands of casualties in 20 months of fighting.
The crowd that took over the airport in the capital of Dagestan, waving Palestinian flags, shouted anti-Semitic slogans and “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is great), according to Russian media such as Echo of Dagestan.
Thousands of people have protested in recent days in several countries, including Europe and the United States, against Israeli bombings against the Gaza Strip.
The Islamist group Hamas said Israeli strikes have killed more than 8,000 people in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war.
The current conflict followed an unprecedented Hamas incursion into southern Israel on October 7 that left more than 1,400 dead, according to Israeli authorities.
Hamas also kidnapped more than two hundred Israelis and foreigners and holds them hostage in the Gaza Strip, a territory with 2.3 million inhabitants that the Islamist group has controlled since 2007.
Source: TSF
