Moscow Unable to Block Illegal Immigration, a Source of Terrorism that is Taking Jobs Russians had Held, Patrushev Says

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 7 – Even though polls suggest that most Russians would like to reduce the number of gastarbeiters among them, Russian officials routinely say that the country’s economy needs these workers because there are now too few Russians entering the workforce as a result of domestic demographic decline.

            But now, Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, has added fuel to the fire on this issue by acknowledging that Moscow has been unable to reduce let along stop illegal immigration and that this flow is not only “a feeding ground for terrorism” but is taking jobs Russians had held after the latter flee the Far East (versia.ru/v-rf-ne-udaetsya-sokratit-nelegalnuyu-migraciyu,  nazaccent.ru/content/24963-patrushev-nelegalnaya-migraciya-yavlyaetsya-pitatelnoj-sredoj.html  and kp.ru/daily/26714/3740097/).

            Speaking in Yakutsk at a Security Council meeting devoted to issues in the Far Eastern Federal District, Patrushev admitted that Russian officials had not yet succeeded in “significantly reducing illegal immigration which ‘threatens the provision of public security’” and creates conditions for terrorism, cross-border crime, and “the criminalization of economic relations.”

            He suggested that migrants “are ever more often using false documents” of various kinds and noted that “these challenges and threats are [especially] important” for the Russian Far East where the low density of the population and the flight of the indigenous population creates even more demand from labor, even from abroad, something that only accelerates Russian flight.