The New York Times: Tajiks in Russia Fear Extreme Punishment – Ending Up in ‘Meat Attacks’ in Ukraine

The American publication “The New York Times” pointed out that this is currently a serious problem facing the country’s leadership.

In a televised briefing on the attack, Russia’s chief prosecutor, Igor Krasnov, said his office was paying “special attention” to preventing “inter-religious and inter-religious conflicts”.

President Vladimir Putin himself is aware of such a threat, who stated the day after the terrorist attack that he would not allow anyone to “sow poisonous seeds of hatred, panic and discord in our multi-ethnic society”.

Despite the high-profile statements, anti-immigrant rhetoric is rampant online.

“Borders must be closed as much as possible or closed altogether,” said a post on one of the ultra-nationalist channels on the messaging platform Telegram. “The current situation has shown that Russian society is on the brink.”

But right now, Russia needs immigrants more than ever.

The New York Times noted that members of Muslim minority groups make up a large proportion of Russian soldiers fighting and dying in Ukraine. Migrants from Central Asia also compensate for labor shortages in Russia and keep the country’s economy running and its military supply chain functioning.

Human rights defender: They need migrants as “cannon fodder” for the Russian army and as labor. And when they need to carry out their counter-terrorism plan, they will also focus on this group of Tajiks.

Among them are millions of migrant workers and ethnic Russians, who already face racial profiling on city streets that was common even before the attack. On Wednesday, it was reported that Russian security forces began raiding factories that employ mostly Tajik migrants.

Svetlana Ganushkina, a longtime Russian human rights defender, told The New York Times that she rushed to try to help the Tajik who had just been arrested because the police were “looking for Tajiks” and “saw someone who looked like that.”

“They need migrants as “cannon fodder” for the Russian army and as labor force,” the activist noted. “And when they need to carry out their counter-terrorism plan, they will also focus on this group of Tajiks.”

The manager of a food industry company in Moscow, where Tajiks work, told reporters during an interview that the mood in the Russian capital reminded her of the year 2000, when Muslims from the Caucasus region faced widespread discrimination after terrorist attacks and wars in Chechnya.

The woman said that Tajiks in Moscow are so afraid that they hardly go outside.

“Because of the SVO, there is no more manpower,” the head of the company emphasized, using the usual Russian acronym for the Kremlin’s “special military operation” against Ukraine. “And now it will be even worse.”

According to the article, Tajik migrants in Moscow now fear not only deportation, but also the possibility that they may be forced to serve in Ukraine. said He asked that his last name not be used for security reasons.

Tajiks are very afraid that the Russian authorities will start mass sending Tajiks to the front to fight and thus take revenge.

“Tajiks are very afraid,” Saidanvar, a 25-year-old Tajik human rights activist who recently left Moscow, said in an interview, “that the Russian authorities will start sending Tajiks to the front en masse to fight and thus take revenge on our Tajiks.”

The Kremlin appears to be seeking to channel anger over the attack on Ukraine while trying to show the public that it is taking concerns about migration into account, but it is treading a very fine line.

“They are going to grab the Tajiks and blame the Ukrainians,” human rights defender M. Ganuškina said without hesitation. “It was clear from the beginning.”

However, pro-Kremlin analyst Sergey Markov noted that he sees tensions over migration policy even within Putin’s powerful security structure. Anti-immigrant law enforcement and intelligence officials are opposed to the military-industrial complex that needs migrant labor, he said.

“It’s a contradiction,” he pointed out. “And this terrorist attack has greatly exacerbated this problem.”

According to Russian government statistics, almost a million Tajiks, home to about 10 million people, population, citizens were registered in Russia as labor migrants last year. They are among the millions of labor migrants in Russia from across the former Soviet republics of Central Asia who are the driving force behind the Russian economy, from food delivery and construction to factory work.