Pro-Kremlin resources claim that on the evening of October 29, mass riots at Makhachkala airport allegedly occurred as a result of information “stuffing” by telegram channels controlled from Ukraine. They allegedly announced the arrival of a flight with refugees - Israeli citizens - in Dagestan. In addition, propagandists claim that they have already established the probable involvement of Iliia Ponomariov, a former State Duma deputy under the control of the SBU, in the situation at the airport. One of their arguments is that Ponomariov even had an “interview on this topic” before.

Propagandists do not provide any evidence for their statements. They assume that a “provocation” was prepared, but for some reason their government allegedly deliberately did not notice the problem. At the same time, some opinion leaders in Russia do not condemn the actions of the Dagestanis, but rather dissociate themselves from the situation, which is another reputational blow for the Kremlin. For example, Russian blogger Yurii Podoliak says that activists behaved in a similar way on the Maidan in Kyiv. They say that everything happened according to the same method, and the participants in the riots seemed to be working for the “Kyiv regime”.

It should be noted that in this case, pro-Russian sources use one of the propaganda tactics called “scapegoat” - they make amends for the Dagestanis and shift responsibility for the events in Makhachkala to Ukraine. Previously, we wrote about how Russian propaganda uses anti-Semitic stereotypes against Ukraine.