Law, Power, and Justice

“Because I am not Russian, hatred was directed at me even before the Crocus City Hall [attack], but now, they especially hate the migrants,” said a taxi driver who came to Moscow from his native Osh, Kyrgyzstan’s second-largest city, some four years ago in search of stable work.  “[The assailants] happened to be Tajiks and Russians cannot differentiate between Tajiks and Kyrgyz.

The assailants] happened to be Tajiks and Russians cannot differentiate between Tajiks and Kyrgyz. We all have the same face to them,” he added

about 3 million migrant workerscurrently residing in Russia. Most of them hail from Central Asia’s Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, whose economies rely on remittances from these workers. 

Shortly after the information of the assailants’ identity surfaced in the media, news of security services conducting sweeping raids on migrant communities across the country emergedalongside reports of isolated xenophobic attacks on Tajik migrant workers. 

“We know that labor migrants are feeling tense. Children of refugees and migrants told us that they are scared to [leave the house] to go to school,” a spokesperson for the Civic Assistance Committee, an NGO that assists refugees and migrants in Russia, told The Moscow Times.  

In Moscow, police have established special units to carry out document checks at hostels frequented by migrants and on major motorways in the capital, the Baza Telegram channel, which is affiliated with the security forces, reported Sunday. 

On Wednesday, Russian police and the National Guard (Rosgvardia) raided a Moscow region warehouse belonging to online retail giant Wildberries. At least 5,000 male migrants were subjected to document checks and some were taken to military enlistment offices, the Telegram channel Mash reported. 

Police raids targeting migrants have also been reported in major Russian cities including Volgograd, Yekaterinburg, Tula, Vladivostok and Ulyanovsk. 

Mikhail Sheremet, a State Duma deputy from annexed Crimea, proposed to “limit entry for migrants” for the entire duration of the war in Ukraine. 

“Foreigners who cross the border are a threat, first of all, to themselves, because they…become an object of interest for Western intelligence agencies [who hope to use them to] carry out terrorist acts,” Sheremet told state media on Sunday. 

“This is not unprecedented, of course. All large terrorist attacks [in Russia’s history]…led to a surge of xenophobia,” said Verkhovsky of SOVA. “In some sense, this cannot be avoided. The real question is: Will this lead to consequences more serious than just words? This is still unclear.” 

For most migrants, however, worsened xenophobic harassment and possible violent attacks pose a more immediate concern.  

Though Russia’s economy still heavily depends on migrant labor, the inflow of Central Asian migrants to Russia has been decreasing amid the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. Now, the additional legal obstacles and xenophobia on both societal and official levels could deter even more workers from coming to the country.  

“But it must be understood that for most migrant workers [coming to] Russia is the only way to make money…High unemployment in their own countries and lower salaries means they are not able to feed themselves, let alone their families,” Umarov told The Moscow Times. 

“For now the situation seems under control, we don’t see mass pogroms like the one in Makhachkala Airport,” said Umarov, referring to the anti-Israeli mob at an airport in Russia’s North Caucasus in October 2023. 

— Read on www.themoscowtimes.com/