Paul Goble
Staunton, Aug. 29 – Russian officials and Russian businesses by their irresponsible approach to immigration have transformed an entire federal subject, the oil-rich Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous District, into an enormous “ethnic enclave,” euphemism Russians use for ghetto, Kirill Kabanov says.
The member of the Presidential Human Rights Council who has long spoken out against immigration and in recent months has been at the center of what looks like a campaign to expel current immigrants and prevent new ones from arriving with this statement has raised the stakes in two ways (iarex.ru/news/150317.html).
On the one hand, Kabanov says that the Russian government authorities and big businesses share responsibility for the influx of migrants that has alarmed many in that country. And on the other, he has raised the specter of the transformation of predominantly ethnic Russian areas into non-Russian ones.
The Khanty-Mansiysk AD is still overwhelmingly Russian in population, according to the 2020-2021 census. But the possibility that the influx of immigrants from Central Asia will change that is certain to lead more Russians to accept the “replacement” theories circulating there and elsewhere and, if they accept Kabanov’s argument, to blame government and business for that.
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