West to Use New Immigrant Ghettos in Russia to Spark Revolts against Moscow, Panov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 12 – After experts say Moscow will have to allow tens of thousands of immigrant workers to enter Russia every year for decades or face demographic decline, opposition to such migration has intensified, with one commentator arguing that Russia must rely on its own resources lest the West use these immigrants to spark revolts against Moscow.

            For most of the last two decades, workers coming into Russia from other former Soviet republics have kept the overall population of that country from declining. Now, experts say, that influx will be needed for the rest of the 21^st century to prevent that decline from turning into a free fall.

            Many Russians are alarmed not only because they see this influx reducing the Russianness of Russia, possibly setting the stage for a repeat of 1991, but also because they believe that the immigrants are responsible for bringing disease and violent crime into the country.

            (For background, see kasparov.ru/material.php?id=6438F5DA5EDBA, nazaccent.ru/content/40376-demografy-rasskazali-skolko-migrantov-nuzhno-privlech-dlya-sohraneniya-chislennosti-naseleniya.html, nakanune.ru/articles/120661/,  iarex.ru/news/93992.html, vz.ru/society/2023/4/11/1206938.html and versia.ru/sredneaziatskim-migrantam-ishhut-zamenu.)

            Because the extensive development of the economy the Kremlin favors requires additional workers, the Russian government has sought to counter such fears even though many of its members likely feel much the same way. But now one writer has come up with a charge about immigrants the Kremlin is likely to find it more difficult to dismiss.

            In a commentary for Stoletiye, Valery Panov says that it is long past time for Russians to recognize what is really going on. According to him, the West is promoting immigration to Russia so as to form ethnic ghettoes in major Russian cities that will arm themselves and then destabilize Russia (stoletie.ru/tekuschiiy_moment/a_v_moskvu_jemu_ne_za_pesnami_119.htm).

            Statistics show, he continues, that immigrants who get citizenship want to arm themselves and say they will use the weapons to defend not Russia but their communities, which Panov argues, reflect the anti-Russian attitudes the West has promoted in the former union republics of the USSR.

            Russia needs to take steps to prevent such immigrants from arriving and doing what the West wants, Panov concludes. Otherwise, the future for Russia will be bleak indeed.