Vladimir Putin has been warned that radical Islamists are "ready to take over Moscow" in a dire threat to his leadership. As a result, the Russian leader's security services have launched a sweeping crackdown on the country's Muslim elite.
At least two prominent muftis and a string of senior Islamic figures were detained in coordinated raids in Moscow and St. Petersburg as well as regions Mordovia and Saratov. The mass arrests came after former Chechen deputy prime minister Ruslan Kutayev, 68, boasted that Moscow’s millions of Muslims would become the decisive force in Russia during a future collapse of Putin’s rule. “We will control Moscow,” Kutayev vowed. “At the right moment, we will act.”
He claimed: “Nobody believes Putin. Everyone knows that Putin has lost.”
The comments sent shockwaves through Russia’s nationalist and pro-war media, where influential “Z-bloggers” called for investigations into the Kremlin-linked Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia, known as DUM. The FSB security service has evidently responded to the calls with the arrests, which are seen as linked to Kutayev's call for Muslims to take power.
Among those detained was Rail-Khazrat Asainov, 42, the acting mufti of Mordovia and a member of the regional Public Chamber. The pretext is an alleged bribe. Former Karelia mufti Visam Ali Bardvil was separately jailed for 15 days after allegedly refusing to show documents at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport and resisting arrest.
Other prominent detainees reportedly include Mohammed Henny, prominent in St Petersburg, and El Khikh Nidal Awadalla Ahmed, from Saratov region, earlier warned by the FSB over alleged foreign contacts. Pro-Kremlin Telegram channels claimed investigators were probing links between detained clerics, “foreign structures,” and the Muslim Brotherhood, which Russia classifies as a terrorist organisation.
The operation is a change of approach against an Islamic establishment inside Russia that has backed Putin including his war in Ukraine. Russian authorities last year branded an Islamic reference book produced by a DUM-linked publishing house “extremist,” while prosecutors also issued warnings over a controversial fatwa interpreted as permitting polygamy.
The latest raids underline mounting Kremlin anxiety over Russia’s changing demographics and the growing political visibility of the country’s Muslim population - especially in Moscow.
Kutayev hinted at a future street force capable of seizing influence in the capital.
“Students will walk around with torches,” he sneered at Russia’s liberal opposition which he claimed depended on “American and British money". He said: “We are people who, if necessary, will cut off heads, demolish buildings and go to the barricades.
“Russia has a tradition: whoever takes the capital takes the country [...] We will control Moscow so that Moscow does not [...] inflict harm on neighbouring peoples and states."
