Since Crocus City, Russia’s Federal Subjects have Increasingly Diverged on the Handling of Immigrant Workers

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 22 – Russian law specifies that the federal subjects rather than Moscow have the right to regulate how many migrant workers they take in and how many restrictions such workers face. As a result, there is a growing divergence among the federal subjects on such measures.

            Even before the Crocus City attack, a small number of federal subjects had begun to introduce restrictions on migrant workers; but after that, the number increased dramatically; and now approximately a third of the more than 80 federal subjects restrict such workers one way or another.

            But what is striking, Moscow analyst Aleksandr Shustov says, is that two categories of these subjects have not done so: the megalopolises like Moscow and Petersburg where migrant workers are most common and the Muslim republics in the North Caucasus and the Middle Volga (ritmeurasia.ru/news--2024-06-22--raznye-podhody-regionov-k-trudu-migrantov-chrevaty-etnokulturnym-raskolom-74063).

            On the one hand, he says, that means the migrant workers are increasingly concentrated in the capitals, exacerbating ethnic tensions in these two big urban agglomerations. And on the other, it means that there is a growing divide between other Russian federal subjects that don’t want immigrants to increase in number and Muslim republics which are happy to receive them.

            That in turn means that the ethnic structure of the populations of the capitals and the ethnic and religious balance of the country as a whole are rapidly changing, something Shustov says will cause problems. And he urges that the central government take control of this issue lest it undermine the country’s national security.