scuffles between demonstrators and police after the conviction of a local opponent

The incidents broke out on Wednesday in Baimak, in the Republic of Bashkortostan, 1,400 km from Moscow. An extremely rare event in a country where there is no longer room for protest voices.

The clash took place on Wednesday, January 17, in front of the court of Baïmak, a small town 1 400 kilometers southeast of Moscow. In these images, we can see, at -20°C, under an icy wind, a few thousand demonstrators throwing packages of snow at a line of riot police, they chant “Shame! Shame!”, after a local activist was sentenced to four years in prison. During the clashes, Internet access was cut. According to local media, there are around forty injured and around twenty arrests.

Convicted of “inciting hatred”

Justice accuses this activist of having uttered two words in Bashkir, his mother tongue, in a speech, in 2023, against the exploitation of gold mines in the region. Two words… two racist insults say the authorities. He assures him that he was poorly translated. Despite everything, he was condemned for “inciting hatred”, a description often used against opponents in Russia.

Faïl Alsynov, 37, is known in Bashkortostan for his fight against the plunder of energy resources, for his desire to promote the local language and culture, but also for his criticism of the invasion of Ukraine. He even described the 2022 mobilization campaign as “genocide of the Bashkir people”, accusing the authorities of recruiting cannon fodder disproportionately from ethnic minorities. This war, he says, is not “our war”, comments that earned him a fine.

Moscow’s fear of separatist desires

Bashkortostan is the largest Muslim-majority republic in Russia, close geographically and culturally to Kazakhstan. It has been in dispute with the central government for a long time. However, the Kremlin is extremely afraid of seeing the same nationalism and separatism that participated, 30 years ago, in the collapse of the Soviet Union, resurface in distant lands of the country. Vladimir Putin continues to praise a multi-ethnic Russia, united against the West. To put down the protest, the leader of the region promised, Thursday, heavy penalties against the Baimak protesters.