Russian police arrest 60 people over Dagestan airport riot - Financial Times

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Russian police have arrested 60 people after an antisemitic mob stormed an airport in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan on Sunday, in an incident the Kremlin blamed on “external interference” by the west.Law enforcement authorities in Dagestan, a mostly Muslim area in the North Caucasus Mountains, said on Monday they had identified 150 of the rioters who broke into the airport in search of passengers arriving on a flight from Tel Aviv.The riot, in which angry crowds waving Palestinian flags encircled the plane, with some climbing on to its wings and roof, followed rumours that refugees from the Israeli-Hamas conflict were being relocated to the region.Russia’s interior ministry said 20 people were injured in the riots, including police officers and civilians.Two are in critical condition.Sergei Melikhov, Dagestan’s governor, blamed the violence on “our enemies”, including Kyiv, and said it was “a stab in the back to our soldiers who are defending all our country” in Ukraine.Dmitry Peskov, Russian president Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, said it was “obvious” that the riot, which took place in Dagestan’s capital Makhachkala, was “in large part the result of external interference”.Putin will hold an extraordinary meeting with his top officials later on Monday to discuss “western attempts to use events in the Middle East to split Russian society”, Peskov told reporters on Monday.He said the riots came against the backdrop of TV images showing “the horrors of what is happening in Gaza”, adding: “It’s very easy for our ill-wishers to use these images to exploit the situation, to provoke and anger people.”The unrest comes as tensions over Israel’s war with Hamas, which was prompted by a deadly assault by the militant group on October 7 that according to Israeli officials killed more than 1,400 people, threaten to spill over into the region.Israel has responded to Hamas’s attack by bombarding the Gaza Strip and launching a ground offensive in the enclave, actions that have so far killed more than 8,000 people and injured more than 20,000, according to Palestinian officials.Several protests in support of the Palestinians have taken place in cities across the Caucasus in recent days, despite strict rules prohibiting public demonstrations in Russia.Russia, which has traditionally aimed for neutrality on Israeli-Palestinian relations, has called for a ceasefire in Gaza and offered tacit backing to Palestinian forces.Last week the Kremlin welcomed members of the leadership of Hamas to Russia for talks, including over Russian citizens held hostage by the Gaza-based group, while Putin did not condemn Hamas’s attack on Israel at a meeting with religious leaders last week.A member of Dagestan’s chief rabbinate said on Sunday there were between 300 and 400 Jewish families in Derbent, a major city in Dagestan, and about the same number scattered through the region.“The situation is very difficult in Dagestan, the community is very afraid,” Rabbi Ovadya Isakov was cited as saying in an interview with Podyom, a small Russian online media outlet.“Russia is not a panacea, there were pogroms in Russia too. It’s not clear where to flee to.”Videos shared on social media showed dozens of men on the runway at Makhachkala on Sunday, with some accosting an airport worker who insisted there were no longer any passengers on board the aircraft.Israel-Hamas warCrowds also over-ran a hotel in Dagestan on Saturday night, searching for Israelis, according to local media coverage.Kommersant reported that a Jewish centre under construction in Nalchik, the capital of the nearby Russian republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, was also set on fire.“The state of Israel views gravely attempts to harm Israeli citizens and Jews everywhere,” the office of Israel’s prime minister said, adding that its government was closely following developments in Dagestan.“Israel expects Russian law enforcement authorities to safeguard the welfare of all Israeli citizens and Jews and act decisively against rioters and against wild incitement directed at Jews and Israelis,” it added.Some of the rumours appear to have been fomented by a Telegram channel called Morning Dagestan, which has more than 50,000 readers.The channel has been affiliated with Ilya Ponomarev, a Kyiv-based former Russian politician who opposes the Kremlin and claims to co-ordinate a far-right group of Russians fighting against Moscow in Ukraine.Ponomarev stated on Sunday that he had not controlled the channel for more than a year.