Ramzan Kadyrov proposes ousting lawmaker who predicted religious clashes in Russia and called migrants ‘savages’
Chechnya Governor Ramzan Kadyrov has proposed “ousting” Russian lawmaker Mikhail Matveev from the State Duma over recent statements in which he referred to Muslim migrants as “savages” and predicted violent clashes between Muslims and Orthodox Christians in Russia.
Matveev’s remarks came during an interview he gave to pro-Kremlin blogger Pavel Ivanov in early January. When Ivanov asked the deputy to comment on reports that some Russian schools opted to forgo Christmas trees this year in response to complaints from Muslim parents, Matveev said that some of the migrants in Russia are “wild savages” who “practice radical Islam” and “live in the 16th century with their ideas about what a Christmas tree is.” He went on to assert that these people are imposing “Sharia law” on Russia and that the authorities have begun “buckling under the Muslim factor” by building mosques.
Matveev also predicted that when the war in Ukraine comes to an end and the Russian army returns to Russia, fighting will break out between Orthodox Christians and Muslims:
The psychology of Eastern people is such that when they see this weakness, they push through what they need. Islam is a pretty powerful religion. Devout people, fanatics, are capable of sacrificing anything for the sake of their idea of how the world should be.
I think that when the special military operation ends and 500,000 or more of our guys return from the front, we’ll see the start of the main clashes between the real masters of our country and the people who will have, by that time, begun to feel like the masters of our country.
In response to Matveev’s comments, Kadyrov said that “true Muslims” have already fought the religious “fanatics” in Chechnya and “defeated them once and for all”:
Today, our soldiers are serving on an equal footing with members of various other faiths and ethnicities in the special military operation zone. They have a single brotherhood, honest thoughts about fate, sober worldviews. And back at home — have you seen this? — Matveev is talking about how to divide them into non-Muslims and Muslims after the special military operation, and to get rid of the latter to avoid provocation.
“If we really want to cut down on the provocations, then we’d better just oust Matveev,” Kadyrov concluded.
Sign up for Meduza’s daily newsletter
A digest of Russia’s investigative reports and news analysis. If it matters, we summarize it.