Verkhovsky on Sources of Anti-Migrant Worker Effort, Role of ‘Russian Community,’ and Possibility of More Inter-Ethnic Violence

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 5 – Aleksandr Verkhovsky, head of the SOVA human rights center, has given an extensive interview in which he discusses three important issues: the reasons the Putin regime has launched an anti-immigrant campaign, the role of the nationalist “Russian Community,” and the possibility of more inter-ethnic violence in the coming months.
    First of all, the human rights expert says that it is uncertain just why Moscow has launched its anti-immigrant campaign now because as senior leaders admit, the Russian Federation needs their participation in the labor force (cherta.media/interview/ideologicheskie-strashilki-vlasti-i-zhelanie-totalnogo-kontrolya/).
    He suggests that the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack didn’t trigger it because the campaign began before that but says it most likely is the product of the regime’s desire to use this campaign to tighten control and fears among some of its members that immigrants are a threat to Russian identity and national security (e.g., interfax.ru/russia/927458).
    And Verkhovsky indicates that in his view, the entire effort is being driven from above and conducted as a propaganda exercise rather than reflecting any autonomous upsurge in anti-immigrant sentiment among the Russian population as a whole. There is simply no evidence for that.
    Second, with regard to the Russian Community, the SOVA head says that isn’t certain that this is a Kremlin project; but the radical nationalist group is certainly operating according to what the Kremlin wants because its leaders know that if they step out of line, they will be immediately suppressed.
    Verkhovsky says that any organized activity of this kind is a threat both to the population against which the group’s members are likely to adopt ever harsher measures and potentially even to the regime if the group gains traction with a lot of people before the Kremlin cracks down on it.
    And third, despite the violence in Korkino in Chelyabinsk Oblast, he argues that “now the threat of such disorders is much less” than it was in 2013 because the Putin regime has established far tighter control over the population.  But despite that, there are risks of more disorders, especially because the regime has limited the role of NGOs in overcoming them.
    In the past, NGOs rather than the state worked with closed communities like the Roma but now the Roma are refusing to cooperate with NGOs because any such cooperation can get them into trouble. But that means, Verkhovsky says, that the positive steps achieved earlier are now being reversed.