Bashkortostan Revolts

Once a protest like this brought down the USSR. Bashkortostan has revolted.

The repeated rallies outside the court building in Baymak have grown in numbers, and activists are calling for acts of disobedience across the republic. Today, several thousand people again marched to the court in the town of Baymak, where the sentence of activist Fail Alsynov was announced: he was sentenced to 4 years in a penal colony.

Around 10,000 people took to the streets - twice as many as two days ago.

The police used truncheons and tear gas to disperse the crowd and arrested dozens of demonstrators.

In response, chunks of ice and snow were thrown at the Russian police. The people refused to disperse, chanting 'freedom' and 'fascists'.

Ruslan Gabbasov, a well-known Bashkir activist and head of the Committee of the Bashkir National Movement Abroad, called for the protests to continue and spread - "start disobedience actions all over the Republic of Bashkortostan! In 2020, his organisation Bashkort was deemed extremist and left Russia.

"Not only the inhabitants of the village, but also the inhabitants of several southern, south-eastern districts gathered for this protest," says Ruslan Valiev, former editor of Ekho Moskvy in Ufa. - The Bashkirs are a rather free and principled people, capable of uniting for the sake of justice. There have been five Russian-Bashkir wars or uprisings. It's difficult to predict how events will unfold, but the authorities have not listened to the people, and there may be further deterioration. There may be one or two more outbreaks of protest, but they will be suppressed and the situation will calm down for a while," predicts Abbas Galliamov, a political scientist who has worked in the republic's leadership. - It will be a relative peace: the people will remember all their grievances and at some point - the most inconvenient for the authorities - they will expose them. Since the head of the republic, Khabirov, is perceived as "Moscow's hand", the negativity currently directed against him will become more and more anti-Moscow and anti-Putin.

In terms of its potential, this is an ethno-nationalist and separatist protest. This is exactly the kind of protest that once brought down the USSR.

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