Star Metro - Russia blames separatist 'traitors' for rare protests

His remarks came a day after the protests and as the first of those arrested were sentenced.

Protesters clashed with police in freezing temperatures in the small town of Baymak in rare scenes of unrest Wednesday after local activist Fail Aslynov jailed for four years.

Alsynov has campaigned for the protection of the Bashkir language and co-founded a now banned organisation. He was convicted of "inciting hatred."

Bashkortostan is a republic in central Russia with a large population of ethnic Bashkir, a Turkic majority-Muslim people.

"You can wear a mask of a good eco-activist, a patriot, but this is not the case," local governor Radiy Khabirov said.

"There is a group of people, some of whom are abroad, who are de facto traitors and call for the separation of Bashkortostan from Russia," Khabirov said.

"They are calling for partisan war here."

Eight protesters were handed short-term jail sentences Thursday, a day after the unrest, a regional court announced.

Investigators had launched criminal cases on the grounds of "mass rioting" and assaulting police officers -- charges which carry maximum penalties of up to 15 years.

The protesters had insisted in social media videos that they were "not extremists". Some carried flags of the republic at the protest.

Khabirov singled out Ruslan Gabbasov -- an exiled Bashkir activist -- as fuelling separatism in Bashkortostan.

Gabbasov, speaking via video-link at a news conference in Ukraine Thursday, said that he wanted Russia to "fall apart".

He asked Kyiv to create a Bashkir battalion to fight for Ukraine to gain military experience before going back to Russia like "Fidel Castro's disembarkation in Cuba".

He warned of more protests in Bashkortostan, adding that the authorities had turned the region into a "colony" for the extraction of raw materials.

The authorities have warned people not to give in to provocations.

Russia has strict laws against protests that essentially ban all public shows of opposition.

Since sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has escalated a decade-long crackdown on dissent, handing out lengthy prison sentences to critics.

Jailed activist leader Alsynov, whose sentencing triggered the protests, had publicly criticised Moscow's mobilisation drive for the offensive.

S.Lapointe--SMC