Divnich's remarks and Alaudinov's reaction sparked controversy about tightening legislation

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The actions of blogger Max Divnich can hardly be called extremist, and the reaction to his statements by the commander of the special forces "Akhmat" Apti Alaudinov is rather an attempt to remain in the information field.

As "Caucasian Knot" wrote, the head of Akhmat special forces officer Apti Alaudinov demanded an apology from blogger and MMA fighter Max Divnich for denigrating the Akhmat special forces and Alaudinov himself by including a fighter of Chechen origin who started a conflict in Lugansk in the Akhmat special forces. Alaudinov later announced the need to toughen punishment for inciting ethnic hatred.

To what extent the dispute between the commander of the "Akhmat" special forces Apti Alaudinov and blogger Max Divnich and Alaudinov's subsequent statements can influence the tightening of legislation in the field of interethnic relations, the correspondent of the "Caucasian Knot" on July 25 commented on the political scientist Andrei Kolesnikov*, Chechen political scientist Ruslan Kutayev*, chairperson of the "Civic Assistance" Committee* Svetlana Gannushkina*, lawyer Timofey Shirokov and head of the "Sova" research center* Alexander Verkhovsky.

According to Andrei Kolesnikov*, when commenting on Alaudinov's statement, it is impossible to talk about a general agenda.

A way to stay in the loop and the information field

“Everyone has their own agenda, and most importantly, criteria for the effectiveness of work - all representatives of the political class must come up with initiatives to tighten legislation. So he decided to keep up with the deputy corps. A way to stay in the loop and the information field,” he believes.

Alaudinov’s position is not related to work, believes Ruslan Kutayev*.

“This is his position, because this is the position of Muslims and non-Russian peoples. Divnich is behaving provocatively, defiantly, because he has some guarantees that the Russian authorities gave him regarding security. In fact, he was released for this,” he said.

According to the political scientist, since in the Russian government there are representatives of non-Russian peoples, they must react to the attacks of such people. "They must react, they must make it known and understand that the punishment for inciting ethnic hatred applies equally to everyone - including them, and not just because Alaudinov doesn't like them," Kutayev* added.

Svetlana Gannushkina* is surprised that a drunken quarrel was given a political character.

"And to make some kind of politics out of this, it seems to me, is completely ridiculous. And it doesn't matter whether they are Russian or not, and if someone speaks out, so to speak, accuses a person who in such a state allowed himself to do something, namely insulting his ethnic origin, then, it seems to me, it is ridiculous and in general already in our time somehow completely strange," she said.

According to the human rights activist, Divnich's actions can hardly be considered extremism. "It seems to me that this is not extremism, but simply a lack of education and any logic. There are things that are indecently simple," Gannushkina* believes.

The fact that an interethnic conflict grows out of an everyday conflict speaks to how tense everything is

At the same time, she pointed out that in the current situation in Russia, everything is very tense. "The fact that an interethnic conflict grows out of an everyday conflict speaks to how tense everything is, how people have stopped perceiving themselves as part of humanity, and perceive themselves as part of a certain group. And every remark that concerns the group is perceived extremely sharply,” the human rights activist emphasized.

Currently, Article 282 is softer than a number of other “political articles,” and has become less frequently used, noted Timofey Shirokov.

“I came across statistics that now fewer people are prosecuted under Article 282 than before [the SVO]. This, of course, is not connected with the liberalization of law enforcement, but, on the contrary, with the tightening of law enforcement. Because now some actions are immediately pulled up as terrorism. Which were previously condemned under extremist articles. Therefore, we can say that a person is lucky if they were charged with extremism. Because for certain points of Article 205, the minimum punishment is 10 years in prison,” he said.

Previously, Article 282 was more often used to incite interethnic hatred, the lawyer noted. "Russian nationalists called it "Russian", positioning themselves as "fighters against the regime". In fact, even then, a lot of non-Russians were convicted under it, for example, for participating in banned organizations. <...> But now there are often known cases of convictions under Article 282 for actions related to Ukraine. Let's say someone performed the Ukrainian anthem," Shirokov explained.

Alexander Verkhovsky considers Divnich to be a figure close to the "Russian Community".

"They sometimes call him an ally there. At least he is friends with them," he noted.

Divnich's indignation at that character is completely understandable

According to the researcher, the conflict on Divnich's part was justified at the beginning. "Divnich's indignation at that character is completely understandable. It is also true that at first he spoke carefully, but then several times he nevertheless formulated it in such a way that his complaints were not against drunken gopniks, even if only from the Caucasus, but against Chechens or Caucasians in general," Verkhovsky explained.

He does not see the need to toughen Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. "In fact, they just tightened it up," Verkhovsky said.

* the activities of the Meta company (which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) are prohibited in Russia.