The investigation of the murder at the Mineralniye Vody hospital (Stavropol Territory) continues. On the night of September 20-21 a group of young people involved in a fight at a café beat 31-year-old Anatoly Larionov. He died after about a week in a coma. Experts say that it has been the eighth mass fight in the city in the last six years and not a single one of the cases has been properly investigated or ended in serious punishment. Maksim Shevchenko, a member of the Russian Presidential Human Rights Council, has explained the causes of such high crime in Stavropol Territory.
- How acute is the problem of criminal groups in Stavropol Territory?
- The investigation carried out by websites and information resources focusing on the Caucasus, Caucasus politics, shows that the cause of the events is not some mysterious interethnic conflicts. It is all the insolent criminal domination of ambitious groups coalesced with the government, with law enforcers of different levels, who put the resort and most of Stavropol Territory under their control. It has already been discussed and written about, but it took a man’s life for the government, somehow reluctantly refusing to recognize reality and grouching, to start recognizing the fact. The problem is that the groups exist and they are not in some underground, they are part of the system, part of society, even part of the state, where it is unfortunately so.
- What role does ethnic crime play in the situation?
- I think that it is only an “auxiliary,” a role for such PR assistance. In general, my position has always been unchanged: there are no interethnic conflicts. Some cases happen but they are very rare. Conflicts in Russia are mostly ethnic-criminal: struggle for markets, struggle for land, struggle for access to the budget. Criminal groups, international by nature, involve different groups of young people in conflicts and deliberately give them traits of interethnic relations. There are Armenians, Russians, Nogais, they are merged into a single criminal society. I refuse to call Armenians aliens. In that place, the native people, they lived there for about 200 years. Nogais are natives too, Terskiye Cossacks are a native ethnicity. What interethnic conflict? There are no interethnic aspects in the conflict. It is pure crime.
- Is the tragedy in Mineralniye Vody a typical tragedy for the region or is it unprecedented?
- It is absolutely not unprecedented. In the NCFD, journalists are killed, killed without punishment. Our colleague Timur Kuashev has just been killed in front our own eyes. A year ago, Akhmednabi Akhmednabiyev, a Novoye Delo journalist, was killed, the criminal case was ended in August, in other words, the investigation was halted, they do not have enough evidence, you see. There is a testimony over Khajimurad Kamalov’s case but nothing is getting anywhere. It is a single coalesced criminal organism. This is what is called mafia. Sicily faced the same in the 1960-1980s. The mafia there coalesced with state institutions, it took great efforts, countless police officers died. Giulio Andreotti’s government should have been dissolved and ministers put in jail. But Italy found strength.
In Russia, especially in Russia’s south, the fight with the system of organized crime that coalesced with the government is an extremely important goal. But I have no clue how to start it. Offering people to flog themselves like a non-commissioned officer’s wife means an opportunity to destabilize the region and lose its foundations.
So I think the government turns a blind eye, understanding the criminal aspect of the case well, but on the other hand, it dreams about rectifying the situation. Overall, if there are no excesses like in Mineralniye Vody, when people totally lost their mind, the situation suits everyone.
Everyone except people, of course, except the population. It suits functionaries, suits law enforcers, suits corrupt local criminal oligarchs. Everyone gets a share from all the illegal tax evasions, land cession, infill construction, opening trade centers and suchlike.
The investigation of the murder at the Mineralniye Vody hospital (Stavropol Territory) continues. On the night of September 20-21 a group of young people involved in a fight at a café beat 31-year-old Anatoly Larionov. He died after about a week in a coma. Experts say that it has been the eighth mass fight in the city in the last six years and not a single one of the cases has been properly investigated or ended in serious punishment. Maksim Shevchenko, a member of the Russian Presidential Human Rights Council, has explained the causes of such high crime in Stavropol Territory.- How acute is the problem of criminal groups in Stavropol Territory?- The investigation carried out by websites and information resources focusing on the Caucasus, Caucasus politics, shows that the cause of the events is not some mysterious interethnic conflicts. It is all the insolent criminal domination of ambitious groups coalesced with the government, with law enforcers of different levels, who put the resort and most of Stavropol Territory under their control. It has already been discussed and written about, but it took a man’s life for the government, somehow reluctantly refusing to recognize reality and grouching, to start recognizing the fact. The problem is that the groups exist and they are not in some underground, they are part of the system, part of society, even part of the state, where it is unfortunately so.- What role does ethnic crime play in the situation?- I think that it is only an “auxiliary,” a role for such PR assistance. In general, my position has always been unchanged: there are no interethnic conflicts. Some cases happen but they are very rare. Conflicts in Russia are mostly ethnic-criminal: struggle for markets, struggle for land, struggle for access to the budget. Criminal groups, international by nature, involve different groups of young people in conflicts and deliberately give them traits of interethnic relations. There are Armenians, Russians, Nogais, they are merged into a single criminal society. I refuse to call Armenians aliens. In that place, the native people, they lived there for about 200 years. Nogais are natives too, Terskiye Cossacks are a native ethnicity. What interethnic conflict? There are no interethnic aspects in the conflict. It is pure crime.- Is the tragedy in Mineralniye Vody a typical tragedy for the region or is it unprecedented?- It is absolutely not unprecedented. In the NCFD, journalists are killed, killed without punishment. Our colleague Timur Kuashev has just been killed in front our own eyes. A year ago, Akhmednabi Akhmednabiyev, a Novoye Delo journalist, was killed, the criminal case was ended in August, in other words, the investigation was halted, they do not have enough evidence, you see. There is a testimony over Khajimurad Kamalov’s case but nothing is getting anywhere. It is a single coalesced criminal organism. This is what is called mafia. Sicily faced the same in the 1960-1980s. The mafia there coalesced with state institutions, it took great efforts, countless police officers died. Giulio Andreotti’s government should have been dissolved and ministers put in jail. But Italy found strength.In Russia, especially in Russia’s south, the fight with the system of organized crime that coalesced with the government is an extremely important goal. But I have no clue how to start it. Offering people to flog themselves like a non-commissioned officer’s wife means an opportunity to destabilize the region and lose its foundations.So I think the government turns a blind eye, understanding the criminal aspect of the case well, but on the other hand, it dreams about rectifying the situation. Overall, if there are no excesses like in Mineralniye Vody, when people totally lost their mind, the situation suits everyone.Everyone except people, of course, except the population. It suits functionaries, suits law enforcers, suits corrupt local criminal oligarchs. Everyone gets a share from all the illegal tax evasions, land cession, infill construction, opening trade centers and suchli
