North Ossetia rules out increased patrols due to conflicts at Chermensky post
The order to introduce a high level of terrorist threat and increase patrols in North Ossetia after the conflict at the Chermen post is fake, the republic's Central Intelligence Agency said. Social media users doubted that the conflict between the young people was purely domestic in nature.
As reported by "Kavkazsky Uzel", on August 25, the head of North Ossetia, Sergei Menyailo, instructed law enforcement agencies to close entry into the republic in the event of domestic conflicts that could escalate into larger-scale and interethnic conflicts. This order was preceded by two brawls that occurred on the night of August 25 on the border of the two republics. Posts about the incidents caused controversy on social networks: Ossetian users supported Menyailo's order to close entry into the republic from Ingushetia, while Ingush users reminded that the borders between the regions have not been officially defined. Security forces reported the detention of those involved in the fight.
At the Chermensky checkpoint, which separates Ingushetia and North Ossetia, a fight between residents of the two republics occurred on the evening of August 24, a source for Fortanga reported. Footage from the scene of the incident, which was distributed by the publication, shows that several dozen people from both sides are involved in the clashes.
In a number of publics and comments, users are publishing a fake document, allegedly signed by the head of the region, Sergei Menyailo. According to this document, due to the escalation of the situation in the Prigorodny District, a high ("yellow") level of terrorist threat was introduced, and orders were given for additional briefings for police squads and the deployment of reinforced patrols, the North Ossetia Regional Control Center reported today.
The department stated that the information is fake. All official orders and decrees of the head of the republic are mandatory published on the government website; there is no such order in official sources. The Ossetian operational headquarters also categorically denied this news. There they confirmed that Sergei Menyailo did not give or sign such a document, the report says. The Center for Strategic Studies also called the dissemination of fakes aimed at "artificially destabilizing the situation."
On August 26, the authorities of North Ossetia distributed a refutation of information that, according to them, was distributed among residents of the republic in instant messengers. The publications claimed that the head of the village of Chermen, Bela Agkatseva, asked "to introduce preventive restrictive measures on the territory of the Prigorodny District" with reference to the tension provoked by residents of the neighboring republic.
The authorities of the Prigorodny District of North Ossetia reported on a women's round table on strengthening interethnic peace and harmony. Participants, including the head of the district Bela Agkatseva, noted the inadmissibility of domestic conflicts becoming interethnic and called for active preventive measures with young people, in particular, involving them in joint socially significant projects implemented in the Prigorodny district and using "people's diplomacy" methods.
The conflict at the Chermen post was not directly mentioned, but the district administration indicated that in the SVO zone "representatives of the Ossetian and Ingush nationalities, shoulder to shoulder, together, defend the Fatherland" and "the manifestation of any contradictions between the two peoples in the republic is more unacceptable than ever - even at the everyday level." The authorities also noted the importance of preventing the spread of radical nationalist ideology and extremist ideas among young people. This message in the Telegram channel of the district administration of the Prigorodny district, which has 1,289 subscribers, remained without comment.
There were no official reports about which republic's representatives were detained in connection with the conflict at the Chermen post. Users of the Ingush Telegram channel "Fortanga" suggested under the message with information about the detention, which received five comments, that "the Ingush will respond as always."
Commentators in the community of the State Emergency Service "Vladikavkaz" on the social network "VKontakte" expressed doubts that the conflict was of an exclusively domestic nature, if its parties represented different nationalities. The post received more than a hundred comments. "And how does domestic soil differ from interethnic soil, I wonder?" asked Nart Alan.
"Why and for what purpose were the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of North Ossetia Alania removed from the Chermen post? "Who were they bothering there?" asked the user Neyroset artificial.
"There should be a special forces unit at the Chermen post at all times," commented Larisa Aylarova.
The largest post on the border of Ingushetia and North Ossetia, which is located at the entrance to the Prigorodny district, is the Chermen post; there are no other posts. "The Chermen post is manned by police officers from central Russia. There are two more posts at the entrance to Dzheyrakh, where the Terek separates the two republics. There are Ossetian police officers there. There is also a post in the Malgobek district on the Terek-Malgobek road. That is a quiet highway. "The people who travel are mainly Ingush, who are moving from Pyatigorsk, Stavropol, and who need to go to Malgobek," Albert Darbazanov, a public figure from Ingushetia, told a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent earlier.
The Ossetian-Ingush conflict occurred in the fall of 1992 in the Prigorodny District of North Ossetia and led to armed clashes. According to the prosecutor's office, 583 people were killed, 939 were injured, and another 261 people went missing. According to various estimates, from 30 to 60 thousand Ingush were forced to leave the territory of their historical residence in the Prigorodny District and Vladikavkaz, most of them settling in Ingushetia, according to a "Caucasian Knot" report. "The Ossetian-Ingush conflict of 1992".
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