Deputy Chief of the Main Military-Political Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces Apti Alaudinov partially apologized for the high-profile incident with the insult to the priest. Earlier, representatives of the so-called Orthodox movement "Forty Sorokov" demanded that the Russian military leader be brought to criminal responsibility and removed from his post.

In May, during a Sunday sermon in Moscow, Schema-Abbot Gabriel spoke negatively about Muslim migrants. He called Islam "the wrong religion" and its followers "an entire army." According to the priest, Muslims can slaughter all Muscovites on the orders of the mullah. After Apti Alaudinov demanded an apology from the Schema-Abbot, he was dismissed from his post as the head of the Sochi courtyard of the Valaam Monastery. At the same time, the military commander sharply condemned Father Gabriel's "provocative insinuations" about the "wrong faith", calling him a "moron in a cassock" and a "representative of the troops of the Antichrist".

After the priest was removed from office, Orthodox activists decided to "punish" Alaudinov and turned to their subscribers for support, announcing a collection of signatures for an appeal to the Investigative Committee and the Ministry of Defense. Representatives of "Forty Sorokov" called for the general to be held accountable under Articles 148 ("Violation of the right to freedom of conscience and religion") and 282 ("Incitement to hatred or enmity") of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Another demand of the activists is the resignation of Alaudinov from the post of deputy head of the Main Military-Political Directorate of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The activists emphasized that Father Gabriel acted "within the framework of legal, ethical and moral norms".

On June 8, Alaudinov published a video message on his Telegram channel, in which he partially apologized for his words.

“Perhaps, as a Caucasian, I should not have insulted him because of my age... Purely because of his age, of course, I apologize to him,” the general explained.

This incident has become another illustrative example of xenophobia, which is increasingly evident in the current Russian reality. The statements of Schema-Abbot Gabriel contain direct signs of inciting hatred on religious and ethnic grounds against Muslims, and not only migrants from Central Asia, but also Russian citizens, in particular natives of the republics of the North Caucasus.

It is noteworthy that in the paradigm of Russian nationalists, Apti Alaudinov, even being a high-ranking Russian officer loyal to this country, is first and foremost a Chechen. And no matter how much he tried to prove his loyalty to Russia with words and deeds, he still naturally found himself the target of public attacks simply for condemning the openly nationalistic attack of an Orthodox priest and demanding an apology. This is the policy of the Russian authorities: on the one hand, they use representatives of national minorities in their own interests, including at the front and in propaganda, on the other, they are subjected to xenophobic attacks by pro-government figures and organizations of various stripes - from public to ultra-religious. The conflict around the priest's speech and the reaction to it demonstrated how deeply religious and ethnic intolerance is rooted in Russian society, which, with the connivance of the authorities, can turn into an instrument of political pressure and persecution. In Alaudinov's latest video, despite all the severity he demonstrates, there is a hint of resentment and justification. Calling the recent high-profile events – the arrest of blogger Areg Shchepikhin in Moscow and the conflict with the priest – “links in the same chain”, he justifies his public comments.

In addition, the general draws attention to the new flag of the special forces unit “Akhmat”, which has a crescent and a cross, symbolizing, according to Alaudinov, the unity of representatives of different religions. It is this unity, as the military leader puts it, that most worries and gnaws at the protesters and their curators, in whose eyes the policy of “divide and rule” looks much more attractive. With poorly concealed resentment, he tries to convince the audience that he is right.

Alaudinov reminds the Orthodox activists protesting that for three and a half years it was the “Akhmatites” who defended the country from the Antichrist and his army in the holy war, and reproachfully asks where they were during this time.

Russian TV presenter and CEO of the Orthodox TV channel Spas Boris Korchevnikov also stood up for Schema-Hegumen Gabriel, explaining that the priest allegedly spoke only about “the aggressive part of the migrants.”

“It might have seemed that it was about all Muslims, but no one I know thought so. It was about the aggressive part of the migrants. And Father Gabriel said that if their mullah orders them to go and cut up Muscovites, then they will go and do it,” the TV presenter claims.

Korchevnikov repeats the narratives of representatives of nationalist groups and their information resources about “how the children of migrants beat up Russian children and film it on their phones, turning it into a kind of flash mob – after all, they do it because their homeland, textbooks and their families taught them to hate Russia and, in a fascist way, consider themselves more correct and purer than the Russians. Therefore, what Father Gabriel said is what everyone already sees. And we are waiting for hundreds of thousands of our heroes to return from the front and finally restore order here, which, fortunately, is already being slowly restored,” the odious journalist essentially calls for violence.

Politician and journalist Maksim Shevchenko draws attention to the connection between nationalist groups like the “Russian Community” and the security forces, without interaction with whom they “will not take a step or lift a little finger.” According to Shevchenko, the policy of creating mono-ethnic groups within Russia is fraught with the beginning of a civil interethnic war if the state is weakened.

Apti Alaudinov gained notoriety as the first deputy minister of the Chechen Interior Ministry. In 2013, he openly stated that any methods should be used against suspected members of the armed underground or opponents of the local government.

Later, as some media outlets wrote, the police general fell out of favor with the head of Chechnya due to suspicions about his participation in an alleged plot against Ramzan Kadyrov, and was dismissed. Participation in the Russian-Ukrainian war not only allowed Alaudinov to rehabilitate himself before Kadyrov, but also contributed to his new career growth, already at the federal level.