By Steve Rosenberg, Russia editor
EPATrinity Sunday is likely one of the most essential holidays within the Orthodox calendar.
On this special occasion, 66-year-old Father Nikolai was in church within the metropolis of Derbent, Dagestan.
Situated in Russia’s North Caucasus area, Dagestan is a predominantly Muslim republic. However Derbent is named “the town of three religions”.
It’s one of many oldest Christian centres in Russia and residential to an historic Jewish neighborhood.
Each have been about to be attacked in essentially the most brutal style.
On Sunday night gunmen stormed the church and murdered Father Nikolai. In addition they attacked the native synagogue, setting it on hearth.
‘We’re all too frightened’
Across the similar time insurgents have been additionally on the rampage in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, focusing on a church and synagogue there, too.
Confronted with this dramatic coordinated assault, safety forces launched an “anti-terrorist operation”. In Dagestan, gun battles raged lengthy into the night time. Not less than 5 of the attackers have been killed.
However why had they gone on a capturing spree?
The quick suspicion: hyperlinks to radical Islam. In spite of everything, not way back, Dagestan was a hotbed of Islamic extremism that had spilled over from neighbouring Chechnya.
After I visited Makhachkala again in 2010, almost each day there have been experiences of militants attacking police and native officers.
Throughout that journey, a policeman referred to as Magomed had advised me:
“Each time I get out of the police automobile, I at all times surprise if the insurgents will see my uniform and shoot me. Six of my colleagues have been killed this yr. At night time you received’t discover any policemen on the streets. We’re all too frightened.”
EPA-EFE/REX/ShutterstockThe power financial and social issues of the area – excessive unemployment and rampant corruption – have been feeding extremism.
Radical concepts thrive in such a soil.
Lately Russian safety forces have seemed to be profitable their battle in opposition to armed insurgents.
However Islamist assaults haven’t stopped. On a number of events the Islamic State group (IS) has claimed duty for assaults in Dagestan, together with a capturing outdoors a church within the metropolis of Kizlyar in 2018.
And but, when Russian MP Abdulkhakim Gadzhiev went on Russian state TV to touch upon Sunday’s bloodshed, he had a really completely different rationalization for what had occurred.
Mr Gadzhiev recommended that the intelligence providers of Ukraine and Nato nations could have orchestrated the assaults. He supplied no proof to again up his accusation.
And when the pro-Kremlin information web site Komsomolskaya Pravda reported on occasions in Dagestan, it accused the “collective West” of attempting “to open a second entrance” in opposition to Russia.
The author continued: “With regards to unrest on this area historically it’s the ears of British intelligence that stick out.”
Blaming Ukraine – and the West. It jogs my memory of official Russian response to a mass capturing again in March. Greater than 140 folks had been killed after gunmen stormed the Crocus City Concert Hall close to Moscow.
The Russian authorities pointed the finger of blame at Kyiv and Western nations, although IS had already claimed duty for the assault and launched video of it.
Days later President Vladimir Putin had even insisted: “Russia can’t be the goal of terrorist assaults by Islamic fundamentalists. We’re a rustic that demonstrates a singular instance of interfaith concord and inter-religious and inter-ethnic unity.”
ReutersWhy do the Russian authorities seem reluctant to acknowledge and talk about the Islamist menace?
It has, I imagine, to do with the warfare in Ukraine.
Ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour, the Russian public has been led to imagine that the best hazard they face, the largest menace to their nation, emanates from Ukraine and the West.
The authorities need Russians to view Kyiv and the “collective West” as public enemy primary.
If folks don’t, they might start to surprise why has Russia been pouring assets right into a warfare with Ukraine as an alternative of specializing in countering Islamic extremism?
However not everybody right here believes that Ukraine has been plotting Islamist assaults on Russia.
In response to Abdulkhakim Gadzhiev’s TV feedback, a distinguished Russian Senator Dmitry Rogozin wrote on social media:
“If we blame each terrorist assault linked to nationwide and spiritual intolerance…on scheming by Ukraine and Nato, this pink mist will lead us to larger issues.”
Mr Rogozin is well-known for his anti-Western rhetoric. However even he seems to grasp that Russia has little to realize from robotically pointing the finger of blame at Kyiv and Western nations.
