There was a domestic dispute in the village of Noviye Vatutinki in the city limits of Moscow, the details of which are still not precisely clear. According to one of the most plausible versions, the conflict began with a verbal altercation between an alcoholic local resident and an Azerbaijanian, with the latter verbally abusing the latter.  

Later, the parties to the conflict were joined by, on the one hand, a friend of a fellow local who was out walking with his underage son, and on the other, three more Azerbaijanians (three of the four Azerbaijanis were brothers to each other). The situation became tense. Moments of the situation involving the 'showdown' between the child's father and the Azerbaijanians were captured on video and posted on social networks. Emotional intensity of the latter episode led to the case being reclassified "by order" as "attempted murder," although clearly such intentions were not even close to reality. But the episode was cleverly edited and promoted so that the clearly "calming" moments from the video were clearly cut out and only the "more aggressive emotions" were left.

The rapid spread of video footage of the conflict in Novye Vatutinki on social media indicates that such a conflict was "ordered". And even if it did not happen "by accident", it could have been artificially instigated. This version is further supported by the fact that, commenting on the incident, the Kremlin's chief propagandist and rabid Armenian nationalist Margarita Simonyan issued yet another inherently racist "pearl". She wrote the following in her telegraph channel:

"All these "newcomers" and "people of Caucasian nationality" are going to end up with a stricter system of residence registration and checks at every metro station (like they checked me when I moved from Krasnodar to Moscow 20 years ago). And they will do the right thing. Because there is nothing to be done. It's a disgrace. In the Caucasus, young men are even embarrassed to go to the toilet, sorry. They tolerate it. Because it's embarrassing. Because they are guests. And in Moscow you are not a guest? Well, they'll show you who's the boss in this house. I'm telling you this as a guest and a person of Caucasian nationality all in one".

There was an immediate reaction to this article's post by Margarita Simonyan.

In reality, it appeared that Simonyan was propagandizing blatant racism and advocating discrimination against Russian citizens of Caucasian origin. The leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, entered the debate with her and wrote the following on his telegram channel:

"I would like to remind the 'native of the Caucasus' Simonyan that before making statements, the chief editor of a serious, authoritative media outlet should check the information and only then draw conclusions and PR on a fresh topic. For instance, in the case of the incident with Halimat Taramova the 'native of the Caucasus' Simonyan had a good opportunity to talk to her and find out the details. We exchanged telephone numbers and got to the bottom of the situation. But what has happened now? Why did Simonyan suddenly put the practice of obtaining reliable information on the back burner and the so-called hype came out on top? By the way, when we asked several chief editors of media outlets why they mention the North Caucasus or the Caucasians in a negative context without any reason, we have more than once received an open answer: without such mentioning we do not get any hits.

Stop promoting your information product on Caucasians! The seemingly serious media is descending to the level of a tabloid yellow press, taking advantage of a short-sighted audience. Such a dirty trick can lead to irreparable consequences. We have just celebrated People's Unity Day, which is supposed to deprive our society of such a disease. But the media behaves as if there are only two categories of citizens: Caucasian and person without nationality. Why are natives of other regions not named? Thousands of other incidents without Caucasian involvement are glossed over or do not mention ethnic or regional affiliation. Murders at school, large-scale corruption schemes, high treason and other high-profile crimes - let's mention nationality here too, or at least "a person of Slavic nationality" or "a native of Moscow. Is it pleasant? At least it will be fair and just to all nations.

I say again, such methods will not result in the unity of our state. A whole generation will grow up thinking that the Caucasus is a separate state. You do not need me to tell you what the tragic consequences will probably turn out to be. There will not even remain a wet spot of the citizens' united identity.

Today, out of thousands of crimes committed in different parts of the country by different people, the media deliberately chooses only those where natives of the North Caucasus republics can be mentioned in a negative light, and begins to discuss the topic. And why don't they write about how the Caucasians defended a girl in the underground from drunken troublemakers of Slavic appearance?

I appeal to the Presidential Administration, State Duma, human rights activists and everyone who cares about the future of the country - this trend must be stopped and millions of Russians must not be allowed to hurt their national and religious feelings on the Internet. There are agents of foreign governments who are undermining this topic under the guise of freedom of speech. It is long overdue for the security services to become involved in this.

The instigators and provocateurs are not hard to find, but it will have to be done until the person they insulted can find them and commit the crime of defending his or her honor and dignity. But this will already be a new round of inciting inter-ethnic hatred between citizens of the same country, and it will only get worse".

It should be taken into consideration that by accusing Margarita Simonyan, who violated the Constitution and laws of the Russian Federation in her nationalist-racist attitude towards Russian citizens of Caucasian origin, Ramzan Kadyrov thus expressed not only his own position but also that of many Russian patriots worried about maintaining the unity of the country and human rights defenders. For here there was an obvious call for the infringement of human rights on grounds of nationality. The post by the Armenian nationalist was also clearly insulting to the residents of other "national" regions of the Russian Federation, not only in the Caucasus, whom Margarita Simonyan immediately put down as disenfranchised "guests" because of their non-Russian origin (although Moscow for these people is their capital).

Ramzan Kadyrov was supported by many in Russian society and the elite. As a result, Margarita Simonyan had to "backtrack" and shift the emphasis to the fact that the participants in the conflict were not abstract "Caucasians" but Azerbaijanians, although three of them were Russian citizens.

The only question is why the purely domestic conflict has been magnified into an "inter-ethnic" one and why the Armenian lobby, of which Margarita Simonyan is a representative, has paid so much attention to it.

It is likely that the conflict was deliberately "timed" to coincide with the anniversary of the end of the 44-day war, which showed not only the complete bankruptcy of the Armenian aggressive policy. It also demonstrated the limited capacity of the Armenian lobby in the world and in Russia. Those in Russia who were openly afraid of Armenian figures, thinking that they had "everything covered everywhere", saw that Armenians "are not all-powerful". This means they can no longer be feared.

It has also become clear that the interests of the Armenian lobby do not always correspond to those of Russia. A year has passed since the end of the war and it is already clear that all the attempts by the same Armenian lobby to " destroy plans" to open up transit corridors through the South Caucasus, which are also in Russia's interests, may end up with nothing. In Russia itself, dissatisfaction with the "Armenian ethnocracy" is mounting in all strata of society and in the elite: after all, the second and third people in power in Russia are Armenians (Mishustin and Lavrov-Kalantarov), but Russia is not showing any particular "success" under their rule.

Therefore, the Armenian lobby has resorted to its well-known principle of "divide and rule". In Georgia's Abkhazia, they succeeded in doing this in due time. They made brotherly Abkhazian and Georgian peoples tear each other apart and tricked Abkhazians into separatism by forcing Russians to side with the separatists. Now the Armenian lobby is conducting the policy of "divide and rule" in Russia in order to make themselves, representatives of "ancient cultural people" indispensable in such circumstances. In fact, Margarita Simonyan's inflammatory provocative posts are working in this direction.

Yet all it took was a serious response to the information provocation (from Ramzan Kadyrov, for example), and the clamour raised by Simonyan, based on the exploitation of primitive nationalism, began to hit her personally and she did not present herself in the best light. Besides, the anti-migrant sentiments that Margarita Simonyan foments with her xenophobic posts are not needed at all by a significant part of the Russian elite.  After all, the same construction complex and public utilities depend on migrants as a workforce.

It is obvious that the provocations of the Armenian lobby will not come to an end with information hysteria around the conflict in Novye Vatutinki. All the more so since anti-Caucasian (against all Caucasians except Armenians) and anti-migrant (against all migrants except those from the Republic of Armenia) sentiments have been fomented in the Russian Federation for a long time and on purpose.

When commenting on Margarita Simonyan's first provocative racist anti-Caucasus statement on the conflict in Novye Vatutinki, we should have recalled that her compatriots in Georgia's Abkhazia and in many other places in the Caucasus were also visiting. Including the Azerbaijani city of Yerevan. And what they did to indigenous population, the same Abkhazian Georgians, everyone knows very well. So who else but the representatives of "the most ancient cultural people" should teach others how to behave as guests.

Kavkazplus