Not long ago, Russians could face criminal charges for shouting slogans like “Russia for Russians!” But now the authorities themselves have started using nationalist slogans in their own campaign against immigrants, while simultaneously tightening immigration laws.
The Russian public generally supports tougher controls on immigrants, preferring not to think about how similar measures could subsequently be applied to others. Under the banner of fighting terrorism and preserving the rights of “indigenous” Russians, the Kremlin has embarked on nothing less than a process of legalized discrimination.
Russia was traditionally one of the world’s most popular destinations for migrants, and Russian officials have actively encouraged such an inflow for decades. For example, Russia introduced a system of licenses in 2010 that strengthened the labor rights of immigrants, and in 2014 it simplified the procedure of acquiring citizenship for foreigners graduating from Russian universities. It was not so much seasonal migration that was boosted by this cutting of red tape as long-term resettlement. Russia’s natural population decline in the 1990s and 2000s was offset by inflows of migrants.
Traditionally, opponents of immigration in Russia were found not in government offices but in street politics, shouting slogans at far-right demonstrations. One notable group was the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) which, along with the Eurasian Youth Union (organized by supporters of the extreme nationalist thinker Alexander Dugin), came up with the Russian March, an annual protest for nationalists and neo-Nazis. The biggest turnout for the Russian March was in 2010, when about 16,000 people attended rallies across the country.
The authorities were wary of nationalist rhetoric and nationalists, and took steps to counter them. The Kremlin was able to co-opt some nationalist activists, while others were jailed, fled abroad, or wound up dead.
Now, however, the slogans of those same Russian nationalists are being adopted by once reticent officials. A recent statement by Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin that the number of serious crimes committed by immigrants had “risen 32 percent” echoed the rhetoric of the DPNI and directly contradicts police data, according to which the number of offenses committed by foreigners declined by 8 percent this year. Similarly, in June, the influential lawmaker Andrei Klishas said that immigrants “want to live here instead of us, and that is a huge problem for us, for Russians.”
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, also seeks tighter controls on immigration. At a 2023 conference, he said that immigrants “change the face of Russian cities” and “challenge cultural traditions.”
Lower down the food chain, racist remarks are becoming more common. Moscow region police chief Viktor Paukov, for example, said publicly in July that his main task was to “lighten up the Moscow region so that it won’t be darkened—as it were—by foreigners.”
The root cause of this shift is Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the normalization of high levels of violence and brutality. Many of the “ultra-patriots,” neo-Nazis, nationalist bloggers, and other media personalities raised to prominence by the war are routinely xenophobic and spout hatred toward a variety of different groups, including immigrants.
Meanwhile, those who once promoted the rights of immigrants are now being targeted by the authorities. The Tajik-Russian singer Manizha, who represented Russia at the Eurovision song contest in 2021, was accused in April of justifying terrorism. Svetlana Gannushkina, head of the Civic Assistance Committee, a charity helping immigrants, was designated a “foreign agent” in 2022, despite being a former member of the Kremlin human rights council.
There has also been a push to tighten immigration laws. Since 2022, as many as nineteen amendments to the law on “the legal status of foreign citizens in the Russian Federation” have been introduced to the State Duma. These include a relatively harmless moratorium on immigrants buying weapons, and a significant ban on immigrants bringing unemployed relatives into the country.
Undoubtedly, the biggest institutional beneficiary of these changes is the Interior Ministry, which can now—without a court order—exercise powers to obtain information from another agency about immigrants, find their location (including by the use of geolocation software), enter any place where they might be located, check documents (including those containing confidential tax or banking information), and impose bans on using banking services.
This anti-immigrant lurch in Russian politics would have been impossible without the empowerment of the Russian security establishment that has been a result of the war in Ukraine. Since the dissolution of the Federal Migration Service in 2016, oversight of immigration has been spread among various agencies. Previously, economic officials—who welcomed immigrants—could overcome objections from the security services. Now the situation has reversed.
Those who support anti-immigrant politics generally don’t appreciate that the measures they seek could end up being used against them. Indeed, the Russian state has already begun to discriminate against citizens for who they are—not what they have done. This sets a dangerous precedent. For example, a Russian citizen by birth who breaks wartime censorship laws can be jailed. For the same offense, someone who acquired Russian citizenship later in life can be deprived of that citizenship (even if this makes them stateless).
All of this is also a worrying signal for labor migrants from Central Asia who want to get a Russian passport, build a career in Russia, and start a family. Even immigrants who support the regime are not always welcome.
The anti-immigration campaign is also entrenching day-to-day hatred. The Sova research center, which studies xenophobia, has observed a spike in unpunished xenophobia since the spring of 2023. Grassroots nationalist groups are springing up (Northern Man, for example, already has offices in all major Russian cities), and vigilante attacks on immigrants are on the rise.
The number of Russians who see an influx of immigrants as a worrying problem has this year risen from 19 percent to 25 percent, according to the independent pollster Levada Center. And the number of Russians wanting a total ban on Central Asians entering the country has doubled to 31 percent since 2022.
The shift in Russia’s approach to immigration is a perfect illustration of how fundamentally the Kremlin can change course. Discrimination against people for relatively innocuous political offenses is no longer surprising in Russia. But it’s a new trend to discriminate against people simply based on who they are. Targeting society’s most vulnerable groups—like those who identify as LGBTQ+ and immigrants—will likely only lead to more repression. Every step down this road makes it easier to take another.
