Moscow [Russia], November 1: Chechen strongman RamzanKadyrov has given the police an order to shoot at demonstrators in order to prevent violent anti-Semitic mobs like one that occurred in neighbouring Dagestan at the weekend.
A crowd hunting for Jews stormed the airport in Dagestan's capital Makhachkala on Sunday and attacked people who had arrived on a plane from Tel Aviv.
More than 20 people were injured and 83 detained, local officials said.
Chechnya and Dagestan are both semi-autonomous Russian republics located in the northern Caucasus. They have Muslim-majority populations.
Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported that Chechen leader Kadyrov told a meeting of the regional government in Grozny that anyone taking part in unrest would be detained and imprisoned.
If anyone resists, he said, officials should fire three warning shots.
"After that, if the person still violates the law, fire the fourth shot at the head! He won't do it again. This is my order," Kadyrov reportedly said.
Like other Russian politicians, he accused the West of inciting the anti-Semitic attack in Dagestan.
According to the authorities, there were also actions directed against Jews in other Muslim-majority regions in the North Caucasus.
Flights from Tel Aviv have now been diverted to other Russian airports in safer regions.
Russia wants to arm itself more strongly against perceived outside interference in response to the anti-Semitic riots, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said later.
Peskov was speaking after President Vladimir Putin met his security council and the heads of the security authorities the previous evening.
According to the Interfax news agency, Peskov said that the circle of participants showed that the discussion was about "intensified measures to ward off outside interference." He said he could not give details.
The Russian leadership sees the riots as having been provoked via social media from abroad. The events in the Middle East are being abused to inflame the mood in Russia with manipulated information, Peskov said.
"The events in Makhachkala were inspired among others by social media, not least from the territory of Ukraine and with the hand of the agencies of Western intelligence services," Putin had said at Monday's meeting.
Putin did not provide evidence for his allegations.
Ukraine has rejected the accusation, pointing instead to deep-seated anti-Semitism in Russia.
The events in Dagestan rather showed Putin's loss of control in his own country, said Ukrainian President VolodymyrZelensky.
Russian leaders have over recent months expressed anti-Semitic sentiments, some of them directed at Zelensky, who is Jewish.
Source: Qatar Tribune