Xenophobic Attitudes in Russia Again on the Rise, Approaching Pre-Crimea Peak

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 8 – After several years of decline following the Crimean Anschluss in 2014 which refocused attention away from minorities toward foreign countries, xenophobic attitudes among Russians have risen for the second year in a row and are now close to their peaks in 2012-2023, according to Levada Center polls.

            Since 2018, the share of Russians favoring imposing restrictions on Roma in Russia has risen from 17 to 40 percent. And there have been similar rises regarding Chines (15 to 39 percent), people from the Caucasus (22 to 31 percent), Ukrainians (8 to 18 percent), and Jews (4 to 17 percent) (gumilev-center.ru/vtorojj-god-podryad-rastut-v-rossii-ksenofobskie-nastroeniya/).

            And today, the sociological center says, half of all Russians say they support the slogan “Russia for the [ethnic] Russians.”

            Levada sociologist Karina Pipiya says Russians are again focusing on the role of immigrants in their society, with the share favoring limiting immigration rising from 58 percent to 72 percent over the last five years, in part because Russians believe they and their relatives can do the work migrants are doing. That figure has risen from 57 percent in 2013 to 64 percent now.

            She suggests that Russian attitudes toward immigrants are returning to the levels they were before the distraction of the Anschluss of Crimea, a process that likely has been accelerated by the economic crisis, one in which Russians are constantly considering what may be threatening their standard of living.

            Aleksandr Verkhovsky, the director of the SOVA Center, agrees. “The statistics have returned to the level of 2011-2012 when the situation was bad by stable, and the pre-Crimean peak was anomaly bad as a result of the anti-immigrant campaign” that was conducted by the state media.

            Now, “attitudes toward groups like the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Jews who earlier bothered people less are becoming rapidly worse and becoming more symbolic as ‘aliens.’” At the same time, he says, this is more political than personal as measures of social distance between Russians and these groups show little sign of changing.

            According to Verkhovsky, Russians are reacting to immigrants now because they are calculating the risks to their own position. In that respect, he says, they are “thinking more rationally and this is good.” He suggests that the new level of xenophobia in Russia is likely to remain close to where it is for some time.