At a memorial service this week outside the concert hall where Islamic extremists were suspected of a deadly terrorist attack, one of Russia's most popular pro-Kremlin rappers accused “right-wing and far-right groups” of “inciting ethnic groups.” “Don't do it,” he warned. hatred. “
In a video conference about the attack, Russia's top prosecutor Igor Krasnov vowed that his service pays “special attention” to preventing “interethnic and religious conflicts.”
And last weekend, in his first comments on the tragedy, President Vladimir V. Putin said he would not allow anyone to “sow poisonous seeds of hatred, panic and discord in our multi-ethnic society.”
The Kremlin's response to last Friday's attack in a Moscow suburb that killed 139 people has repeatedly raised concerns that the tragedy could fuel ethnic conflict in Russia. Putin and his security chiefs have accused Ukraine, without evidence, of helping organize the killings, but the four suspects detained in the attack are members of a predominantly Muslim group. The fact that he is originally from the Central Asian country of Tajikistan has fueled anti-immigrant rhetoric online.
For Mr. Putin, the problem is compounded by competing priorities in the Ukraine war. Members of Muslim minority groups make up a significant portion of Russian soldiers who fight and die. Immigrants from Central Asia provide much of the workforce that keeps Russia's economy running and its military supply chain active.
But many of the most ardent supporters of Mr. Putin's invasion are Russian nationalists, and popular blogs on the messaging app Telegram have been filled with xenophobia in the days since the attack.
“The borders need to be closed as much as possible, if not closed,” said one person. “The current situation shows that Russian society is on the brink.”
As a result, the Kremlin is walking a fine line trying to satisfy war supporters by promising tougher measures against migrants while preventing tensions from escalating throughout society. The potential for violence was highlighted in October when an anti-Semitic mob stormed an airport in the Muslim-majority Russian region of Dagestan and confronted a passenger plane arriving from Israel.
“The authorities see this as a very big and serious threat,” Sergei Markov, a pro-Putin political analyst in Moscow and a former Kremlin adviser, said in a telephone interview. “Therefore, every effort is currently being made to calm public opinion.”
Caught in the middle are millions of migrant workers and ethnic Russian minorities, who already face an increase in the kind of racial profiling on city streets that was common even before the attacks. ing. Svetlana Ganushkina, a longtime Russian human rights defender, said on Tuesday that she tried to help a Tajik man who had just been detained because police were “looking for Tajiks” and “saw someone who looked like that.” He said he was panicking.
“They need migrants as cannon fodder for the Russian army and as labor,” Ganushkina said in a telephone interview from Moscow. “And when they need to accomplish their plans regarding the fight against terrorism, they will also focus on this group of Tajiks,” she said.
Last year, nearly 1 million people from Tajikistan, a country of about 10 million people, were registered as migrant workers in Russia, according to government statistics. They are among the millions of migrant workers who have come to Russia from all over the former Soviet states of Central Asia and are the engine of Russia's economy, working in everything from food delivery and construction to factory work.
A manager at a Moscow food company that employs Tajiks said in an interview that the atmosphere in the Russian capital reminded him of the 2000s, when Muslims in the Caucasus faced widespread discrimination in the aftermath of terrorist attacks and the Chechen war. Ta. Tajiks in Moscow are so scared that they rarely go outside, she said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions for speaking to Western journalists.
“The supply of labor is already gone because of the SVO,” she added, using a common Russian abbreviation for the Kremlin's “special military operations” against Ukraine. “And now it’s going to get even worse.”
Ethnic tensions have been a persistent challenge for Putin during his nearly quarter-century rule, but he has also sought to use them to geopolitical advantage. Putin's rise to power was shaped by the war in the Muslim-majority southern region of Chechnya, where Russia was brutally crushing separatist and extremist movements. He also helped incite separatism in Georgian regions such as South Ossetia and Abkhazia, taking sides in long-simmering conflicts there to expand Russian influence.
Putin's government is already trying to show the public that it is ready to take action against migrants. A leading lawmaker on Tuesday proposed banning the sale of firearms to newly naturalized Russian citizens. Krasnov, the top prosecutor, did not provide specific details, but said that in 2023, the number of crimes committed by immigrants had increased by 75%. “We need to develop a balanced solution based on the need to ensure national security and economic benefits through the use of foreign labor,” he added.
Far from trying to keep foreigners out, Russia has been making it easier for immigrants to become Russian citizens since it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The main reason appears to be that the military needs soldiers and police in Ukraine. Raids targeting migrant workers to force them to register for military service are common in Russian news reports.
As a result, Tajik migrants in Moscow now fear not only deportation but also possible forced recruitment in Ukraine, said Saidanvar, 25, a Tajik human rights activist who recently left Moscow. He asked that his last name not be used for security reasons.
“The Tajiks are really afraid that the Russian authorities will start sending Tajiks to the front lines en masse as some kind of revenge against the Tajiks,” he said in an interview.
In his speeches on the war, Mr. Putin has frequently paid lip service to Russia as a multi-ethnic country, a legacy of Russia and the Soviet empire. In March 2022, after mentioning the heroic deeds of soldiers from Dagestan, President Putin listed several ethnic groups in Russia, saying, “I am a Lak, a Dagestani, a Chechen, an Ingush, a Russian, a Tatar.'' ” he said. , Jews, Mordvins, Ossetians. ”
In his rhetoric about conflict with the West, Mr. Putin has frequently accused Russia's opponents of trying to stir up ethnic strife within the country. That was his response to the October Dagestan airport riot, which he baselessly blamed on Western intelligence services and Ukraine.
It has also been central to the president's response to Friday's terrorist attack, which the Islamic State claimed responsibility for and which U.S. officials say was carried out by an offshoot of the extremist group. On Tuesday, the head of Russia's domestic intelligence agency claimed that Ukrainian, British and American spies may have been behind the attack.
As a result, the Kremlin appears to be trying to refocus anger over the attack on Ukraine while trying to show the public that it takes immigration concerns into account.
“They are going to grab the Tajiks and blame the Ukrainians,” said Ganushkina, a human rights defender. “That was clear from the beginning.”
Still, Markov, the pro-Kremlin analyst, said there were tensions over immigration policy even within Putin's powerful security establishment. He said anti-immigrant law enforcement and intelligence officials are at odds with the military-industrial complex, which requires immigrant workers.
“That's a contradiction,” he said. “And this terrorist attack has sharply exacerbated this problem.”