Interview: Russian Extremism Expert On Roots, Ramifications Of Anti-Semitic Incidents In The North Caucasus

On the night of October 29, a violent mob of about 1,000 people shouting anti-Semitic slogans stormed the airport in Makhachkala, the capital of Russia's North Caucasus region of Daghestan.

The mob was apparently incited by rumors that Jewish refugees from the Israel-Hamas war were being settled in the Muslim-majority region, and rioters sought to prevent passengers arriving on a flight from Israel from entering the city.

There was a spate of anti-Semitic incidents in several places in the North Caucasus around the same time, apparently spurred by the same rumors published repeatedly on a Telegram channel called Utro Daghestan that was created by Kyiv-based Russian opposition figure Ilya Ponomaryov.

Ponomaryov acknowledges his group set up the channel and similar ones across Russia, but told Current Time on October 30 that he no longer had any connection with Utro Daghestan. In other interviews as recently as August and September, he had indicated the channel was still part of his wide-ranging activities against President Vladimir Putin.

Putin and other Russian officials have blamed Ukraine and other "outside" forces they have asserted were bent on stirring up unrest in Russia.

RFE/RL's Caucasus.Realities spoke with Aleksandr Verkhovsky, an expert on extremism with the Sova research group and a former member of the presidential advisory council on civil society, about the wave of anti-Semitism in Daghestan and other parts of the North Caucasus and about what the authorities can do to prevent further anti-Jewish violence.

The interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

RFE/RL: How unexpected were the events in Makhachkala? Could anyone have foreseen this anti-Semitic incident?

Aleksandr Verkhovsky: Maybe someone could have foreseen it, but these events were a complete surprise to me. The reaction of Russia's Muslim community to the events going on in the Middle East has been rather more restrained than in European countries.

Of course, people in Russia have expressed criticism of Israel, just like people in other countries. But it is one thing to write on social media and completely another to go storming airports or even just to show up at an unsanctioned demonstration supporting the Palestinians. It didn't seem like anyone there was ready for such means of protest.

We can only speculate about why the mood has changed in the Muslim community of the North Caucasus. So far, it is not clear what produced this radicalization.

RFE/RL: Were you also surprised by the anti-Semitism or are such ideas widespread there?

Verkhovsky: I have heard a lot of people who study the North Caucasus say that anti-Semitism is pretty widespread. But it is pretty calm and passive. Like accusing Jews in general of various conspiracies. But this sort of anti-Semitism doesn't prompt people to action.

RFE/RL: How do you assess the actions of the security forces, which allowed the rioters to occupy the airport and the runway?

Verkhovsky: Nobody expected that events would take such a turn. The police were not prepared for that. If they had been, the airport would have been guarded by well-equipped riot police. What could they do in the face of hundreds of aggressive people? Shoot at them? Apparently, no one gave that order, and it is hard to say how that would have ended up.

Of course, Daghestan is a unique place. The beat policeman is much closer to the average citizen than his counterpart in Moscow. They aren't sent there from other regions but are recruited locally. They live there and know people personally, and the people know them. This is a big distinction compared to those who disperse protests in the capital. They are strangers in the city and are predisposed to be confrontational with protesters.

But even in Moscow, if such a crowd unexpectedly tried to storm Sheremetyevo Airport and the riot police didn't arrive in time, the police also probably wouldn't beat people mercilessly to keep them off the runway. Commanders wouldn't think this would be the right thing to do because a rampaging mob could defeat a few officers and that would create an extremely dangerous precedent for any authoritarian system.

RFE/RL: The authorities have claimed the Makhachkala events were organized by Ukrainian nationalists and have warned of "external interference." Do you think it is possible that a Telegram channel could influence the public mood to such an extent as to get people to come out for a pogrom?

Verkhovsky: Certainly, the people who instigated the pogrom are to blame, no question. If law enforcement could get the people who created Utro Daghestan, they would be arrested. But people are not robots. They went voluntarily. No one dragged them with a rope.

I definitely think there were some organizers there at the scene. Who they were, I don't know. I don't think we are talking about some sort of conspiracy center. Probably, they were just local people who share radical beliefs and called for a protest -- a horizontal network.

But overall, it is a myth that a Telegram channel or even Channel One national television can push the people to do whatever they want. People look to the media for confirmation of what they already think. They might get more fired up by the media, but they aren't going to radically change their opinions after reading a social-media post.

Daghestani society is unique in that it is more complexly structured, self-organized, and active than the people of any other North Caucasus republic or most regions of central Russia. Such activity can appear in positive forms, such as protesting a new landfill or speaking out for people who don't have water or electricity. Or it can appear in negative ways, even in the form of an anti-Semitic pogrom.

RFE/RL: You suspect there were organizers on the ground. Do you think law enforcement might reach the same conclusion and start blaming random opposition activists?

Verkhovsky: The way law enforcement works -- and not only in Russia -- is that the political leadership orders them to pursue the organizers of disturbances. It might be possible to do something at the moment of the rioting, but it is more difficult to dig into it after the fact. That demands time and professionalism. So, the temptation arises to blame oppositionists or even ordinary people who have made anti-Israeli comments on social media for everything. There are hundreds of comments like that, so a lot of people could be randomly accused and punished.

RFE/RL: What can the authorities do to prevent more incidents like these?

Verkhovsky: To be frank, there is no guaranteed way to avoid a wave of such incidents. But I think the authorities in Daghestan are acting prudently so far. They didn't rush to bring in the riot police. The head of the republic, Sergei Melikov, made an apparently emotional appeal saying there is nothing brave or virtuous in such behavior. That was the right thing to say, even though one could disagree with other things he said.

There will be attempts to repeat such high-profile actions. But it isn't so easy to catch police off-guard a second time, so they most likely won't succeed.

I hope the authorities will make a political decision not to prosecute random people for inciting mass disorder, but instead will wait until they identify the real participants. The airport is full of security cameras, so that shouldn't be too hard. Why is that important, besides the fact that it is what the law requires? When innocent people are accused, the clear injustice simply increases radicalization and attracts new people to radical ideas.

What can be done about anti-Semitic tendencies? A state can't -- and shouldn't -- tell people which countries they can like or not like. People may not like Israel for a combination of political reasons. But that view cannot morph into storming embassies, and the government is obligated to maintain order. It is necessary to prevent the dislike of Israel or support for Palestine from morphing into a hatred of all Jews. But this is very, very difficult. No one has yet come up with a universal mechanism for combatting anti-Semitism.

Translated and adapted from Russian by Robert Coalson