John Kirby, the United States National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications, ripped into Russian President Vladimir Putin for blaming the anti-Semitic riot at Makhachkala Airport in Russia on the West.
On Sunday, mobs yelling “Allahu Akbar” hunted down Jews in Dagestan and stormed the airport, making their way onto the tarmac to attack Israelis who had just arrived from Tel Aviv, according to multiple reports. The North Caucasus Republic of Dagestan is a majority-Muslim region in southwest Russia that borders Azerbaijan and Georgia.
One Israeli citizen, aboard the plane and later on a bus that rioters chased, told Ynet, “The bus kept turning around … and people were chasing it and throwing stones. I put my suitcase against the window. … They came inside, went from person to person, and asked if they were a Muslim or a Jew. I said I was a Muslim, because I was scared to death. Fortunately, they believed me and continued on.”
Kirby had said that the attack “can only be described as a chilling demonstration of hate … Some people have compared it to the pogroms of the late 19th and early 20th century and I think that is an apt description.”
Putin insisted that U.S.-backed forces were trying to destabilize Russia, saying, “For this purpose, they use a variety of means, as we can see – lies, provocations and sophisticated technologies of psychological and information aggression. The events in Makhachkala last night were inspired also through social networks, not least from the territory of Ukraine, by the hands of agents of Western special services.”
“Admiral, you mentioned Putin’s response or lack of response to this anti-Semitic mob at the airport, but his spokesman reportedly said that yesterday’s events were largely the result of outside interference and that the security meeting is in part to discuss attempts by the West to use the events in the Middle East to divide the Russian society,” a reporter said to Kirby.
“Well, isn’t that sweet?” Kirby replied. “It’s classic Russian rhetoric isn’t it, when something goes bad in your country, you just blame somebody else, blame it on outside influences. The West had nothing to do with this. This is just hate, bigotry, and intimidation, pure and simple. And a good leader, a decent leader would call it out for what it is, the way President Biden has called it out here in this country. Instead of blaming the West for something and pushing and pushing it off to somebody else.”
