Participants in anti-Semitic riots at Makhachkala airport will be equal before the law: only those who encroached on the lives of police officers and organized pogroms will be punished. This was stated by the head of Dagestan Sergei Melikov, responding to a statement by former UFC champion Khabib Nurmagomedov.

“Someone has to answer for this. Let's let those who quietly smashed shop windows, took out souvenirs, products, or those who dismantled paving stones in order to throw these stones at police officers answer. Three of them are in the hospital,” Melikov added.

Earlier, former UFC champion Khabib Nurmagomedov, following European freestyle wrestling champion Makhmud Magomedov, called on the Dagestan authorities not to resort to exemplary punishments for the rioters at the Makhachkala airport and to forgive them. The Chief Mufti of Tatarstan, Kamil Samigullin, also called for leniency.

The day before it became known about the administrative arrest of 15 participants in the pogroms, a total of 83 people were detained.