Rioter who hunted Israelis during antisemitic airport riot killed fighting for Russia in Ukraine

Dagestan airport rioter who hunted Israelis killed while fighting for Russia in Ukraine after joining the military.

By World Israel News Staff

A man involved in the 2023 antisemitic riot at an airport in Russia’s Muslim-majority Dagestan region has been killed fighting for Moscow in Ukraine after leaving the Russian penal system and signing a military contract, according to Israeli and regional media reports.

Israeli media reports identified the man as Omar Zhanburuaev, while several Russian-language and regional reports have rendered his name as Umar Dzhambaruev or Dzhanbaruyev.

Shamil Khadulaev, head of Dagestan’s Public Monitoring Commission, reported his death on August 11, saying his body was being returned to the village of Tarki for burial.

The reports link Zhanburuaev (Dzhambaruev) to the October 29, 2023, riot at Makhachkala’s Uytash Airport, when hundreds of people forced their way into the terminal and onto the airfield after a flight arrived from Tel Aviv.

Members of the crowd searched for Israeli and Jewish passengers, with video showing rioters breaking through doors, running across the airport and waving Palestinian flags.

More than 20 people were injured, while the passengers aboard the Israeli flight escaped injury.

Zhanburuaev later entered the Russian military after facing prosecution over the unrest.

In a video published in January, he said he had voluntarily signed a contract with Russia’s Defense Ministry in an effort to rehabilitate himself.

Explaining why he had gone to the airport in 2023, he said he had been supporting his “brothers from Palestine,” while describing his subsequent military service as an attempt to “rehabilitate” himself and “defend the homeland.”

Another version of the video carried online quoted him saying: “I signed the contract voluntarily to rehabilitate myself,” adding that he wanted to demonstrate that his strength was needed elsewhere rather than at the airport.

Ynet reported that he had been convicted for his role in the riot and sentenced in June 2025 before subsequently joining the Russian armed forces.

Regional reporting similarly describes him as having been prosecuted and convicted.

His death is apparently not an isolated case.

Khadulaev said another defendant connected to the airport riot, Muhammad-Said Murtazaliev, had previously been killed while serving with Russian forces and was buried in Dagestan in January.

“Umar left behind four sons,” Khadulaev said, adding that it was the second known death among those involved in the airport events who later went to war.

Khadulaev said six other people linked to the airport unrest were serving in the combat zone, while another had returned disabled.

Ynet gave a slightly different accounting, reporting that seven participants had joined the military and that five remained alive, including one who had been seriously wounded.

The movement of people linked to the Makhachkala riot into Russia’s armed forces comes against the backdrop of efforts by authorities in Dagestan to encourage military enlistment among some of those associated with the unrest.

In November 2024, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported that Mahmud Amiraliyev, head of Dagestan’s Karabudakhkent district, told suspected riot participants that those who signed military contracts would be removed from a police “preventive” monitoring register.

Placement on the register could bring employment and other restrictions and result in “constant attention from law enforcement agencies,” according to Amiraliyev.

Separate reporting in October 2025 said at least three convicted participants in the airport riot had signed Defense Ministry contracts and gone to fight in Ukraine. A Russian law enforcement source said that, after fulfilling their military contracts, their criminal records could be cleared.

The Makhachkala riot erupted about three weeks after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel and the beginning of the Gaza war.

A crowd gathered after messages circulated on Telegram urging residents to confront passengers arriving from Israel.

Reuters reported that one message called on Dagestanis to meet the “uninvited guests” and force the plane and its passengers to leave. The crowd subsequently breached the airport, searched vehicles and moved onto the runway.

Russian prosecutors later said some of the defendants had acted out of “national and religious hatred and hostility toward Israeli citizens.”

The riot caused extensive property damage and disrupted airport operations, while 30 officials were subjected to violence and 23 were injured, according to prosecutors.

The prosecutions ultimately became one of Russia’s largest criminal cases arising from antisemitic violence in recent years.

By July 2025, Russia’s Investigative Committee said courts had issued 28 verdicts against 135 defendants, with investigators completing cases against 139 people. Three alleged organizers were placed on Russia’s wanted list.