Moscow Softens Punishment for Many Baymak Protesters Lest It Provoke Greater Bashkir Opposition to Itself, Davidis Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 6 – When hundreds of Bashkirs went into the streets in January 2024, the Russian authorities took a hard line arresting a large of them and sending them to prisons and camps. But now, it is releasing many from such facilities although still imposing lighter restrictions and punishments on them.

            Many Bashkir activists see this as a great victory for the Bashkirs in their struggle to protect their republic from untrammeled economic development that has had devastating environmental consequences (idelreal.org/a/eto-bolshoy-shag-k-pobede-osuzhdennye-po-baymakskomu-delu-vozvraschayutsya-iz-koloniy-v-bashkortostan/33750988.html).

            That may be true, but Memorial’s Sergey Davidis suggests that more may be going on and that it is likely to inform how the Kremlin will deal with mass protests in non-Russian areas in the future by offering not only sticks but carrots to those who may take part in such demonstrations.

            According to the expert on protests in Russia, Russian judges aren’t releasing prisoners to lesser punishments now out of some kind of humanism but only in response to a central decision that the use of repression alone may make protests in the republics more anti-Moscow and that a calibrated approach is more effective.

            Moscow doesn’t like any independent movement, Davidis says; and it is especially nervous about ethnic movements. But these aren’t going to disappear and so the center wants to use methods that will divide and weaken such groups rather than unite them against the Russian center.

            “The Baymak events,” he continues, “were neither an anti-war nor even an anti-Putin protest. Instead, they arose as a result of a specific ethno-national grievance. Consequently, the authorities sought to intimidate those involved … [but] recognize that they cannot afford to turn these people into enemies.”

            Therefore, Davidis says, the powers that be “are currently employing a ‘carrot and stick’ approach. The ‘stick’ has already been applied: people have been frightened, and the unacceptability of protesting against the authorities has been clearly demonstrated. Now, the ‘carrot’ is being offered” with some being released.  

            Obviously, such “carrots” are being offered only to those not deemed to be leaders, he says. As for the others, they may receive even harsher sentences now and in the future. But Moscow’s effort to treat the followers more gently may have the effect of slowing the growth of national movements to the point that they could threaten the center.