Paradoxically, protests have not subsided in the capital of russia for several weeks. So, on March 12, in the kosino-ukhtomsky district of moscow, a prayer was held against the construction of the largest mosque in Europe, which was decided to be built in a sacred place for russian orthodoxal church believers – near the Holy Lake, and also in the middle of Orthodox churches. This is what outraged Orthodox russians. It would seem that this situation is completely unrealistic in a state that positions itself as a worldwide defender of Orthodoxy. And according to the generally accepted opinion, it is in russia that any confrontations on a religious basis should be resolved in favor of the same Orthodoxy.
However, “not everything is so clear-cut”, since the second side appeared in the situation – russian Muslims from among the so-called kadyrov residents. It was at this moment that it turned into a conflict.
In particular, a video appeared on the network in which a group of armed people, allegedly fighting in Donbas, strongly spoke out in favor of building a mosque:
“We are not threatening you, we are warning you. If you do not support the will of the Almighty, we will fight against you. We don’t care who we fight with… [and] the protesters must be arrested or destroyed.”
The head of Chechnya, r.kadyrov, also reacted to the protests. In his Telegram channel, he expressed his support for the construction of the mosque and called the russians, who oppose its construction on a place sacred to the Orthodox, cowards and provocateurs:
“If all these rally participants came out with the idea of protecting the russian land, then let’s go to the trenches with a machine gun! The vast expanses of russian land on the front line, which must be defended every day, cannot be overlooked. Take a machine gun, push aside the Muslim who is fighting instead of you today in the russian Donbas, and show your patriotism, show in deeds, and not in words or provocations, how much you love your homeland.”
The most interesting thing here is that, despite all the acuteness of the situation with the construction of the mosque, both the leaders of moscow and the leaders of russia are silent, preferring a wide coverage of the story surrounding the termination of the lease agreement of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra.
Ignoring the problem of inter-confessional and inter-ethnic conflicts by the kremlin looks like a trend that has been followed since 2021, because it was then that the growth of inter-ethnic and religious confrontations began to be recorded. This is stated in the report of the russian human rights defender a.brod, dedicated to manifestations of aggressive xenophobia and radical nationalism in russia in 2021:
“For the past few years, we have been constantly talking about the fact that there is a decline in the total number of attacks, acts of vandalism, and intolerance on ethnic and religious grounds. However, today we are forced to state that in 2021 their growth is observed. Of course, we are not talking about dozens or hundreds of incidents, but the trend is alarming.”
But can the conflict surrounding the construction of moscow’s mosque go into a “hot” phase and turn into a religious war between Orthodox and Muslims? Even a year ago, such a scenario would have been absolutely impossible, as the authoritarian russian vertical would not have allowed such a confrontation to even begin. However, now, given the sharp radicalization of both sides of the conflict, especially against the background of the lack of front-line successes, such a development is quite likely.
At the same time, this situation has put the kremlin in a very dangerous position, because no matter in whose favor the conflict is resolved, moscow will still receive a dissatisfied part of the population capable of more radical actions, including violent ones.
