Ingush police battalion disbanded after its members refuse to disperse protestors

A police battalion in the Russian federal subject of Ingushetia was disbanded after its members collectively refused to force protestors to disband during a protest in the republic’s capital of Magas on March 26. Kaloy Akhilgov, the former press secretary to Ingushetia’s head of government, told reporters about the dismissal, saying 19 police officers were fired in total.

“All this happened because they didn’t follow an order to disperse the protestors. Thanks to this division, none of the protestors were injured. [These officers] did not allow a large group of Russian National Guard members to reach the area where the protestors were standing,” Akhilgov said.

Protests in Magas lasted from the morning of March 26 to March 27. They were triggered by an attempt on the part of Ingush lawmakers to eliminate certain constitutional obstacles to shifting the republic’s border. That bill followed a controversial attempt to trade contested territories between Ingushetia and the neighboring republic of Chechnya.