Central Asian Migrants Radicalizing Russia’s Own Muslims, Russian Nationalist Commentator Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 13 – Roman Antonovsky, a Russian nationalist commentator, says that Central Asian migrants coming to the Russian Federation are not only bringing in radical Islamist views but infecting indigenous Russian Muslims with them (rusvesna.su/news/1752434329), thus offering yet another argument to those who want to expel the immigrants.

            For more than a decade, Russian commentators and experts have argued about this possibility, with some suggesting that the Central Asians bring radical Islam with them and others arguing that they are radicalized by the xenophobia they face and their concentration in ghettoes in major Russian cities.

            These observers have also disagreed on two other issues. Some insist that the migrants are having a major impact on indigenous Muslim nations, while others say the impact of such people is minimal. And some say the return of the migrants to their homelands will spark Islamist revolutions there, while others deny that possibility.

            (On these debates, see https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2015/10/gastarbeiters-in-russia-contributing-to.html, https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2017/11/isis-seen-spreading-into-russia-via-new.html, https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/04/dushanbe-prepares-for-massive-return.html and https://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/10/any-large-scale-return-of-kyrgyz.html.)