YEREVAN. –  Clashes in southern district of Moscow are an attempt to use a domestic crime for escalation of interethnic relations, Vice-President of the Union of Armenians of Russia Levon Mukanyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

The stabbing of Yegor Shcherbakov made residents of Biryulovo take to the streets. Shcherbakov and his girlfriend were on their way home when an unknown man attacked the couple and then stabbed Shcherbakov with a knife. The man was described by a girl as a native of Caucasus. The incident made local residents take to the streets. They marched to the police department urging to find and punish the attacker and toughen migration laws. Nationalists and skinheads attacked the local trade centers, around 380 people were detained.

Levon Mukanyan said the situation resembles a provocation, since everything is based on girl’s evidence.

“It is unclear who was to attack first and how it really happened,” Mukanyan said.

He recalled that there are no investigation results or court ruling. Assumptions are presented as facts, he said, adding that hundreds of crimes are committed in Moscow every day, but only this incident especially was the focus of the media.

Levon Mukanyan noted that the authorities and police are adequately responding to the situation.

“We are confident that the authorities would find the real assaulter,” he said.

At the moment the Union has not received information about injured or detained Armenians. The reason is the police are not publishing statistics, and the injured do not hurry to visit a doctor.

According to the Armenian News-NEWS.am data, most of the Moscow farmers’ markets belong to the natives of Azerbaijan. Thus, the action could be directed not against “the natives of Caucasus”, but the Azerbaijanis. Eighty percent of those working at the market are migrants. The owners would be happy to employ the locals, but Moscow residents refuse such work.