RUSSIAN PRIME minister Vladimir Putin addressed the nation yesterday as cities throughout Russia reeled from a week of ethnically motivated street clashes.
In a televised question-and-answer session that went on for over four hours, Mr Putin answered 90 questions from viewers across the country.
“We have to crack down on any extremist acts,” Mr Putin said, adding that Russia is a multi-ethnic state, where no citizens should be afraid to walk the streets.
Over 160 ethnic groups live in the Russian Federation.
The rise in extremism was an obvious point to top the agenda, after more than 1,000 arrests were made in Moscow alone on Wednesday. It was the latest attempt to clamp down on escalating tension between nationalists and migrants from Russia’s north Caucasus region.
The trouble broke out late last week during a protest urging the catching of the killers of Yegor Sviridov, a fan of Moscow’s Spartak football club, allegedly murdered in a violent clash with north Caucasus migrants.
Mr Sviridov was believed to have links to the more fanatical groups of the club’s supporters. Spartak has featured Irish international Aiden McGeady in its line-up since August. The football dimension to the violence has raised concerns for the safety of international fans, just weeks after Fifa (the international football association) awarded Russia the 2018 World Cup.
Saturday saw tension in the capital escalate as police and special forces struggled to protect other citizens near Red Square from an estimated 5,000 protesters. The most serious public disturbance in the capital in over 10 years saw the unruly crowd making Nazi salutes and shouting nationalist slogans such as “Russia for Russians!”
The authorities have been criticised both for letting Mr Sviridov’s killers go free and being woefully unprepared for the violence, despite warning signs that tension was mounting.
Mr Putin said yesterday that criticism was justified, but “humiliating” police officers should be avoided.
On Wednesday there was a heightened police presence at the capital’s Kievskaya metro station, the anticipated location of more clashes. And Moscow’s often dire traffic problem was even worse, as those who could avoided travelling by metro. On Saturday, rioters stormed the city’s underground system, attacking people they believed to be from the Caucasus.
More arrests were made this week in St Petersburg and in Russia’s southern cities of Nizhny Novgorod, Krasnodar and Rostov-on-Don.
Other issues addressed by Mr Putin included the economy. He predicted a return to pre-crisis GDP levels (about 7 per cent) in early 2012. Russia saw a 3.8 per cent growth in GDP in 2010, which he described as “satisfactory”. There was also a question about former head of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky. “A thief should be behind bars,” Mr Putin said in reference to the imprisoned former oil executive.