But the scenes of violence in Makhachkala, Dagestan, this week, as well as images of local people searching out Israeli passport holders in a hotel in the city of Khasavyurt, recalled darker moments in Russian history, when Cossacks rampaged through Jewish communities as local authorities looked on.
For some Russian Jewish leaders, the Kremlin's recent geopolitical shift away from Israel, as well as its nods toward antisemitism, played a direct role in last week's events in Dagestan. Pinchas Goldschmidt, a former chief rabbi of Moscow who left in 2022 after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, said: "By meeting Hamas last week and not condemning the massacres, the Kremlin might have given the green light to some elements in the Caucasus that the hunting season [against Jews] is on."
This week, Putin sought to show he was in control, convening his security council over the rioting and shifting the blame for the attacks abroad. Yet Goldschmidt said: "I think that considering in Russia everything is tightly controlled by the government, it is inconceivable that these riots were not instigated or directed by governmental structure." Dagestan, a poor region with striking mountain ranges on the southern tip of Russia, has consistently proved a challenge for the Kremlin to manage. Moscow spent decades attempting to quell an Islamic insurgency there, where more than 90% of the population identify as Muslim, and still struggles to find a solution for poverty and high unemployment.
The area has served as a focus for protest. It hosted some of the country's largest anti-mobilisation demonstrations last year, when Putin called up hundreds of thousands of troops for his invasion of Ukraine, and in 2020 attracted protests against Covid quarantines.
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