A mass brawl was prevented by the police special forces in the twon of Artemovsk, Sverdlovsk District. Some 100 people carrying hatchets, bats and firearms and other weapons were arrested. According to ‘Kommersant’ media agency it turns out that two major nationalist groups of the town decided to join their forces against the strongest Armenian organized criminal group.
Other media propose different versions of the events. According to ‘Izvestiya’, it was a meeting of local Cossack organization and another youth organization who tried to resolve their differences once and for all. This version, however, also mentions ‘Armenians’, who ‘provoked the conflict’.
The official report of the police states that this fight was organized by rivaling criminal organizations. All detained were freed the next day, some were charged with administrative offence. The participants of this brawl were for the most part sportsmen, employees of security companies, ex-soldiers. However, according to the local media, two members of local City Council and at least 4 Cossack atamans. The brawl is said to be initially organized to settle existing disagreements between two Slavic gangs, but later they decided to put their differences aside to oppose the Armenian gang.
The version of the conflict proposed by ‘Izvestia’ stipulates that the conflict started a month ago, when some Armenians beat up a member of one of the Slavic groups. Other members of the group tried to execute revenge but they couldn’t find the offenders. However, they had a random fight with two young people who turned out to be members of local Cossack organization, so the two Slavic groups had to ‘declare war’ on each other. Finally, the two groups decided to try to restore peace and invited the Council Members andt atamans as mediators.
This interest to recent events in Artemovsk is fueled by summer events in Sverdlovsk District, when residents of a village had to defend themselves against a group of migrants who supported a troublesome gypsy family. A citizen fo Azerbaijan was killed in the fight.
By newsru.com
