Closed Diasporas are Seizing Power Locally and Moscow has No Idea How to Counter That, Shulika Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 29 – The clash between Roma and local Russians in Chelyabinsk earlier this month has not only put “the Gypsy factor” at the center of “growing inter-ethnic tensions in the Russian Federation but also has highlighted two broader problems that should be of concern to all Russians, Kirill Shulika says.

            On the one hand, what happened in Chelyabinsk was less about the action of one Roma against one Russian but rather about the Roma community having taken control of the settlement there and ignoring Russian laws and practices, the Moscow commentator argues (rosbalt.ru/news/2024-10-29/mozhno-li-obuzdat-nravy-kochevogo-naroda-5234038).

            And on the other, the clashes highlighted a much larger problem: the clash in Chelyabinsk resembles clashes that are taking place not only between Roma and Russians but also highlighted the fact that Moscow has no effective plan to deal with them and regional and local officials are largely on their own, often without the resources to suppress violence.

            Given this failure, Shulika says, “it isn’t surprising that various groups like ‘the Russian Community’ have emerged to assume the role of militias” which can act between officials don’t; and it should be a matter of extreme concern that these militias are going to explode in size as Russian veterans return from the war in Ukraine and join up.

            As a result, the violence seen in Chelyabinsk last week almost certainly is a harbinger of far more widespread and bloody clashes ahead, unless Moscow can come up with a strategy to take back control over localities that groups like the Roma and other closed diaspora populations have established in recent years.

            Tragically, Shulika continues, he says he “hasn’t heard a single idea” from Moscow “about what to do with such situations,” thus washing its hands of the situation and placing all the burdens of enforcing Russian law on regional and local bodies which lack the resources to carry that out.

            Those who assume that the local police can handle this spreading problem are profoundly wrong. Instead the fighting is likely to be not between the police and the closed diasporas but  between the closed diasporas and militias that neither Moscow nor the regional governments will be able to control.

            And that, if Moscow remains passive, Shulika suggests, will open the way to a war of all against all, something which will shake the Russian Federation to its foundations.