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At a memorial service this week exterior the live performance corridor the place Islamist extremists are suspected of finishing up a lethal terrorist assault, considered one of Russia’s hottest pro-Kremlin rappers warned “right-wing and far-right teams” that they need to not “incite ethnic hatred.”
At a televised assembly concerning the assault, Russia’s high prosecutor, Igor Krasnov, pledged that his service was paying “particular consideration” to stopping “interethnic and interfaith conflicts.”
And when President Vladimir V. Putin made his first feedback on the tragedy final weekend, he stated he wouldn’t permit anybody to “sow the toxic seeds of hatred, panic and discord in our multiethnic society.”
In the wake of the assault close to Moscow that killed 139 individuals final Friday, there was a recurring theme within the Kremlin’s response: a worry that the tragedy might spur ethnic strife inside Russia. While Mr. Putin and his safety chiefs are accusing Ukraine — with out proof — of getting helped set up the killing, the truth that the 4 detained suspects within the assault are from the predominantly Muslim Central Asian nation of Tajikistan is stoking anti-migrant rhetoric on-line.
For Mr. Putin, the issue is magnified by the competing priorities of his warfare in Ukraine. Members of Muslim minority teams make up a big share of the Russian troopers preventing and dying. Migrants from Central Asia are offering a lot of the labor that retains Russia’s economic system working and its navy provide chain buzzing.
But lots of the most fervent supporters of Mr. Putin’s invasion are Russian nationalists whose standard, pro-war blogs on the Telegram messaging app have brimmed with xenophobia within the days because the assault.
“The borders should be shut down as a lot as doable, if not closed,” stated one. “The state of affairs now has proven that Russian society is on the brink.”
As a end result, the Kremlin is strolling a effective line, attempting to maintain warfare supporters comfortable by promising more durable motion in opposition to migrants whereas attempting to stop tensions from flaring throughout society. The potential for violence was highlighted in October, when an antisemitic mob stormed an airport within the predominantly Muslim Russian area of Dagestan to confront a passenger airplane arriving from Israel.
“The authorities see this as a really huge, critical risk,” Sergey Markov, a pro-Putin political analyst in Moscow and a former Kremlin adviser, stated in a telephone interview. “That’s why all efforts are being made now to relax public opinion.”
Caught within the center are thousands and thousands of migrant staff and ethnic-minority Russians who’re already going through a rise on metropolis streets within the type of racial profiling that was commonplace even earlier than the assault. Svetlana Gannushkina, a longtime Russian human rights defender, stated on Tuesday that she was scrambling to attempt to assist a Tajik man who had simply been detained as a result of the police “are searching for Tajiks” and “noticed an individual with such an look.”
“They want migrants as cannon fodder” for the Russian Army “and as labor,” Ms. Gannushkina stated in a telephone interview from Moscow. “And when they should fulfill the plan on preventing terrorism, they’ll additionally concentrate on this group” of Tajiks, she stated.
Nearly 1,000,000 residents of Tajikistan, which has a inhabitants of about 10 million, had been registered in Russia as migrant staff final 12 months, in line with authorities statistics. They are among the many thousands and thousands of migrant laborers in Russia from throughout the previous Soviet republics of Central Asia, a driving power in Russia’s economic system, from meals supply and building to manufacturing unit work.
A manager of a meals enterprise in Moscow that employs Tajiks stated in an interview that the temper within the Russian capital reminded her of the 2000s, when Muslims from the Caucasus area confronted widespread discrimination within the wake of terrorist assaults and the wars in Chechnya. Tajiks in Moscow are so apprehensive they’re hardly going exterior in any respect, she stated, requesting anonymity as a result of she feared repercussions for talking to a Western journalist.
“There’s already no provide of labor due to the S.V.O.,” she added, utilizing the widespread Russian abbreviation for the Kremlin’s “particular navy operation” in opposition to Ukraine. “And now it’ll be even worse.”
Ethnic tensions have been a permanent problem for Mr. Putin throughout his nearly quarter-century rule, however he has additionally tried to make use of them to his geopolitical benefit. Mr. Putin’s rise to energy was formed by warfare within the southern, predominantly Muslim area of Chechnya, the place Russia sought to brutally extinguish separatist and extremist actions. He has additionally helped foment separatism in locations just like the Georgian areas of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, taking sides in long-simmering conflicts there to develop Russia’s affect.
Mr. Putin’s authorities is already attempting to point out the general public that it stands able to take motion in opposition to migrants. A high lawmaker proposed on Tuesday that firearms gross sales be banned to newly naturalized Russian residents. Mr. Krasnov, the highest prosecutor, stated that the variety of crimes carried out by migrants rose by 75 p.c in 2023, with out offering particular particulars. “We have to develop balanced options primarily based on the necessity to guarantee the protection of residents and the financial expediency of utilizing overseas labor,” he added.
Far from attempting to maintain foreigners out, Russia has made it simpler for migrants to change into Russian residents because the begin of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. A major motive seems to be the navy’s want for troopers in Ukraine, and police raids concentrating on migrant staff to compel them to register for navy service have change into commonplace in Russian information stories.
As a end result, Tajik migrants in Moscow now worry not solely deportation, but in addition the chance that they could possibly be pressed into service in Ukraine, stated Saidanvar, 25, a Tajik human rights activist who just lately left Moscow. He requested that his final identify not be used for safety causes.
“Tajiks are actually afraid,” he stated in an interview, “that the Russian authorities will begin sending Tajiks to the entrance en masse to battle as a form of revenge in opposition to our Tajik individuals.”
In his speeches on the warfare, Mr. Putin has paid frequent lip service to Russia as a multiethnic state — a legacy of the Russian and Soviet empires. In March 2022, after describing the heroism of a soldier from Dagestan, Mr. Putin enumerated a few of Russia’s ethnic teams by saying: “I’m a Lak, I’m a Dagestani, I’m a Chechen, an Ingush, a Russian, a Tatar, a Jew, a Mordvin, an Ossetian.”
In his rhetoric about his battle with the West, Mr. Putin has steadily accused Russia’s adversaries of attempting to fire up ethnic strife in Russia. That was his response to the Dagestan airport riot in October, which he baselessly blamed on Western intelligence companies and Ukraine. That can also be more and more on the middle of his response to Friday’s terrorist assault, which the Islamic State claimed duty for and American officers say was carried out by a department of the extremist group. On Tuesday, the top of Russia’s home intelligence company claimed that Ukrainian, British and American spies may need been behind it.
The upshot seems to be that the Kremlin is in search of to refocus anger over the assault towards Ukraine whereas attempting to point out the general public that it’s taking issues about migration under consideration.
“They’re going to seize the Tajiks and blame the Ukrainians,” Ms. Gannushkina, the human rights defender, stated. “It was clear from the very starting.”
Still, Mr. Markov, the pro-Kremlin analyst, stated he noticed tensions over migration coverage even inside Mr. Putin’s highly effective safety institution. Anti-immigrant regulation enforcement and intelligence officers, he stated, had been at odds with a military-industrial advanced that wants migrant labor.
“It’s a contradiction,” he stated. “And this terror assault has sharply aggravated this downside.”
