Rare violent protests in Russia after anti-war activist jailed

Russians have clashed with riot police in a rare, large protest after an activist was sentenced to four-years in a penal colony.

Fail Alsynov appeared in court on Wednesday accused of making a racist comment in a speech against plans to mine gold in the central Bashkortostan region using migrant workers.

Despite temperatures of -20C (-4F), thousands gathered outside the courtroom in Baymak demanding his freedom after the sentence was passed down.

Videos shared on social media showed a bus and three heavy police trucks, alongside crowds of protesters who squared up to officers who were holding shields and wearing helmets.

The unrest in Baskortostan is in part due to Putin’s ‘Russofication’ of the ethnic Bashkirs and their Bashkir language.

Even though the ethnic language is supposed to be equal in law to Russia the Russians are adamantly working to stomp out the language in favor of Russian.

An armed resistance movement has started in response, the Committee of Bashkir Resistance.

From Wiki page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_Bashkir_Resistance

The Committee of Bashkir Resistance would be founded on 21 September 2022.[1] Several commissariats would be attacked.[1] After Russian partial mobilization, the Bashkir resistance posted

The time of demonstrations and protest marches are over, Putin and his allies can now expect bullets and Molotov cocktails.[2]

On 24 September the group firebombed the United Russia offices in Salavat and on 3 October they firebombed the Communist Party of the Russian Federation office in the city. Russian officials suspect Ruslan Gabbasov, a prominent Bashkir émigré leader, is behind the creation and support of the committee.[1] Russian political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin described the committee as:
the first swallow among the republics which are talking about independence.[1]

Since partial mobilization, the Committee of Bashkir Resistance has been fighting an underground war against the Russian Government by firebombing commissariats, Federal Security Service offices and administration buildings.[1][2] The group maintains ties with Gabbasov’s Bashkir National Political Centre, the successor to Bashkort, a political party banned by the Republic’s Supreme Court in 2020 for being an extremist organization.

The group officially supports further federalization and regional rights within Russia to achieve sovereignty, but has a large faction advocating for total independence.[3] In August 2021, Fail Alsynov, the chairman of Bashkort, and Gabbasov staged a massive protest on the Kushtau mount where several thousand protesters clashed with local security forces.

Radiy Khabirov, the Head of the Republic of Bashkortostan, personally negotiated with the protesters for their dispersal. Following the protest Alsynov and Gabbasov fled the county for Lithuania as criminal charges for creating an extremist organization where brought against them.[3] On 10 October 2022, photos of armed Bashkir militants appeared on Telegram wearing chevrons with a blue hexagon and crescent, similar to the insignia of the army of Bashkortostan during the Russian civil war.

The militants have stated they do not wish to fight for a Russian world and that Ukrainians had done nothing against the Bashkirs, and that they have sworn oaths to fight for the liberation of Bashkortostan.[3]

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