UFA: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that some political forces are using Islam to weaken our state and to create conflicts on Russian territory that can be managed from abroad.
His comments came about a week after the anti-migrant riots in the Moscow district of Lyublino and a day after a suicide bomber killed six people and injured 36 more in the city of Volgograd, about 1000 away from Ufa.
Talking to Muslim clerics at a meeting in Ufa where he arrived to chair the session of the Presidential Council for Interethnic Relations, Putin urged the country’s Muslim leaders to work with state authorities in combating the modern tendency of bringing politics into religion and making it radical.
The Russian president also noted that Muslims must counter attempts to bring strife between them and the rest of the society by maintaining their historical traditions.
Putin said that despite the diversity of schools and movements within the Muslim faith Russian Muslims had always been united in their service to the society and the state.
In addition, Putin called upon Muslims to establish and strengthen partnerships with their religions, first of all – with the Russian Orthodox Church.
