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Cossack group led by MMA fighter attacks Azerbaijani family over ethnicity

Three men from a Cossack village in the Chelyabinsk region of Russia were detained for assaulting the sons of Azerbaijani entrepreneur Aminal Musayev last week. Among the detainees is mixed martial arts fighter Sergei Kalinin.

According to Russian media, the incident occurred after one of Musayev’s sons, Ilgar, decided to join the Cossacks, a group of predominantly East Slavic–speaking people who became known as members of democratic, self-governing, semi-military communities, predominantly located in Eastern and Southern Ukraine and in Southern Russia. Ilgar was warned that he would be rejected from the group due to his ethnicity and Islamic faith but still showed the desire to join the group.