Rioters should be ‘shot in the head’ – Chechen leader
Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Muslim-majority southern Russian region of Chechnya, has ordered the use of lethal force against potential rioters who would resist law enforcement. The threat comes after a crowd in neighboring Dagestan stormed an airport in an attempted anti-Jewish pogrom.
Speaking at a regional governmental meeting on Monday, Kadyrov said Chechen authorities would “apprehend and jail” any rioter, according to local media.
“Or, you know what, make three warning shots in the air, and if after that the person does not abide by the law – make the fourth shot in his forehead,” the senior official added, describing the instruction as an “order.”
The chilling warning comes after a mob, which was allegedly riled up by a Ukraine-linked social media channel claim that “refugees from Israel” were arriving in planes, breached the international airport in Makhachkala, Dagestan on Sunday night. Riot police were deployed in response to the emergency, with ensuing clashes resulting in 20 people being injured on both sides.
Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed the Ukrainian government and its Western backers for the crisis during a security council meeting on Monday.
“We know that [Stepan] Bandera and other accomplices of [Adolf] Hitler are lionized [in Ukraine]. We know that the leadership of Ukraine applauds the Nazis from World War II, who personally took part in the crimes of the Holocaust,” the Russian leader said.
“Now, directed by their Western patrons, [Kiev] wants to incite pogroms in Russia,” he alleged. “Scum they are. There is no other way to put it.”
In a separate post on social media on Monday, Kadyrov said young Muslims should take advice from their elders to avoid being manipulated into breaking the law.
“They have hurt themselves, their republic,” he said of the rioters in Dagestan. “I am sure that reputable individuals in Dagestan had called on them, explaining the senselessness of these actions and the Western manipulation, but they were not listened to. And what came out of it?”
He urged the youth to think before they act and not turn into a “mindless mob.”
