Reaction to Russia's New Cossacks

On the letters page of The Moscow Times, Nikolai Butkevich writes: "I fully realize that most Cossacks are normal people who want to reconnect to their pre-Soviet traditions; in some ways they are the equivalent to Civil War re-enactors in the U.S. However, there is a definite lunatic fringe within the movement defined by extreme racist and anti-Semitic views and a propensity to solving problems through the use of force. The passage of this law, I fear, will only inspire more interethnic violence."