Migrants in Russia Are Terrified as Racism Grows After Deadly Attack

In the days since the March 22 terrorist attack on a concert at the Crocus City Hall near Moscow, there has been a growing wave of threats, physical abuse, and harassment from law enforcement and ordinary citizens against Central Asian diasporas across Russia.

The attack, which claimed at least 144 lives and was allegedly conducted by four Tajik nationals with ties to the Islamic State-Khorasan, has resulted in a vicious spike in the xenophobia and discrimination that have defined the lives of migrants in Russia for decades. Both the government and law enforcement have been actively fanning the flames of this hatred, in ways that ultimately serve Russia’s narratives around its invasion of Ukraine.

Last week, a shopping pavilion owned by Central Asian migrants was burned down in the city of Blagoveshchensk on the Russia-China border. In Kaluga, southwest of Moscow, a group of unknown perpetrators beat up three Tajik citizens on the street, one of whom was later hospitalized. Migrants from Kyrgyzstan were reportedly held at Sheremetyevo Airport outside Moscow for two days only to be later returned home. There are reports from across Russia that customers are refusing the services of taxi drivers of Tajik nationality. Kyrgyzstan already has called on its citizens not to travel to Russia, and the Tajik Embassy in Russia has told its nationals in the country to stay at home.

“This is the worst life in Russia has ever been,” Muboris, a Moscow-based cook from northern Tajikistan, told us over the Telegram messaging app. “My manager texted me saying he doesn’t need no terrorists at his restaurant and that he will stop paying me.”

“Now any offers to do [construction work] immediately stop as soon as employers learn I am from Tajikistan,” said Sadriddin, who has been living in Russia for more than a decade and who asked over Telegram not to use his real name. “I have some savings to wait this out, but they won’t last long, and I need to feed my family back home.”

Unable to find gainful employment in their economically stagnant countries, Central Asians go to Russia to search for work. According to Russian Interior Ministry data, labor migration from Central Asia hit a five-year high in 2022, with as many as 978,000 Kyrgyz, 3.5 million Tajiks, and 5.8 million Uzbeks entering Russia intending to work. In recent years, remittances (mainly from Russia) have totaled the equivalent of a third of Tajikistan’s GDP and a quarter of Kyrgyzstan’s. But while Russia remains a popular destination, migrants there have long faced issues from wage theft and ruthless bureaucracy to daily abuse, discrimination, and even death threats from law enforcement and ordinary Russians alike—and now it is only getting worse.

Valentina Chupik, a recognized human rights lawyer and the director of a Russia-focused migrant rights group, reported that she has received more than 2,500 calls from migrants in Russia since the terrorist attack complaining about illegal detentions and searches. Police raided facilities across Russia associated with migrant workers and detained dozens of people on suspicion of breaking migration laws. Members of the Russian parliament immediately called for further limits on migration from Central Asia, and a source at Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the media that the government may tighten control over migrants.

Police raids on establishments that employ migrants and occasional spikes in anti-migrant rhetoric among government officials are common in Russia. While the authorities’ response is clearly aimed at projecting strength to a domestic audience—and simultaneously deflecting attention from their failure to prevent the attack—the corollary effect has been the continued normalization of violence against those who represent the proverbial “other”—the central figure in the worldview that sustains Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Despite the Islamic State-Khorasan claiming responsibility for the attack and the United States warning the Russian government about the likelihood of such an attack just a few weeks ago, the Russian government immediately tied the attack to the Ukrainian government and its Western partners. In his first remarks following the attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin alleged without any evidence that Kyiv had provided a “window” on the Russia-Ukraine border to enable the attackers to try to escape.

In subsequent comments on March 25, Putin, while acknowledging the role of the Islamic State-Khorasan in the attack, doubled down on allegations that Ukraine played a role and said the United States was “using every channel to try to convince its satellites and other countries … that there is supposedly no indication of involvement by Kyiv.” And he suggested that the attack was part of what he described as efforts by Ukraine, “carrying out the orders of its Western handlers,” to “sow panic” in Russia as Moscow’s forces are making gains in its invasion. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, wrote in his Telegram channel that if Kyiv’s involvement in the attack were revealed, “the terrorists themselves, as well as Ukrainian officials, must be destroyed.”

By simultaneously blaming the Islamic State, Ukraine, and the West, the Kremlin perpetuates the idea of “fortress Russia,” besieged on all sides. Regardless of who was behind the attack, the Kremlin “needed” it, Ukrainian sociologist Oleksandr Shulga said. Given the war’s duration and its negative impact on the Russian economy, he said, the Kremlin can no longer galvanize public support with the promise of rapid victory or material gain. And so they have fallen back on fear: “They need to replace mundane everyday life problems with something at the level of instinct and survival,” Shulga said.

Racism and xenophobia are embedded in much of Russian society, and in this case that has somewhat cut against the authorities’ preferred narrative. The authorities identified the suspects as Tajik nationals, but official statements, such as that of Federal Security Service head Alexander Bortnikov, have emphasized the purported culpability of Ukraine and its Western allies rather than the ethnicity of the suspected attackers. Nonetheless, the responses of ordinary citizens reveal the long-standing, visceral racism against non-ethnic Russians. Popular reactionary Telegram channels, many of which have thousands of subscribers, repeatedly mention the suspects’ Tajik nationality, employing heavily racialized and dehumanizing language. On March 25, popular pro-war author Alexander Lyubimov published a diatribe referring to Tajiks as “barbarians” and “not human.”

Violence—particularly the spectacle of violence—both real and symbolic is inherent to fascist regimes such as Russia’s and has defined the Russian authorities’ response to the attack. Images of the obviously tortured suspects have flooded official channels and the pro-war ecosystem on Telegram. One popular video shows a man in camouflage cutting off the right ear of Rajab Alizade, one of the suspects, and forcing the severed flesh into his mouth.

On March 23, another pro-war channel posted a video showing one of the suspects, whose face shows signs of beating, in a hospital bed being interrogated by an unknown man. The caption reads: “Interrogation of the beast in the hospital.” The comments reveal a rampant thirst for violence. “Putin, bring back the death penalty—and make it public,” one reads. “Cut off the ear of this one, too!” another reads. Another commenter calls on the interrogator to “hang him by the balls and break his fingers.”

This dehumanizing language echoes that which the same posters, as well as state media propagandists, use toward Ukrainians. While Tajiks and Ukrainians are two very distinct groups, the normalization—indeed, glorification—of violence against one group sustains the mindset that allows for violence against the other. Medvedev again wrote in his Telegram channel that Russia “will avenge everyone [killed in the attack], and everyone involved [in organizing the attack], regardless of country of origin and status, is now our legal and main goal. Watch out, bastards.”

“[Medvedev’s words] signal that almost everything is possible, everything is permitted, and this is very alarming,” said Stephania Kulaeva of the Anti-Discrimination Center Memorial.

While the 144 concert-goers were the first victims of the terrorist attack, they will not be the last. Central Asians in Russia—and, indeed, anyone who is not an ethnic Russian—are now suffering an even higher rate of attacks and harassment. This is the result of a deeply entrenched imperial worldview in which those not part of the empire’s ethnic core are seen at best as expendable and at worst as nonhumans who deserve the violence to which they are subjected.

In Ukraine, Russian soldiers, driven by this mindset, continue to kill service members and civilians alike, propelled by anti-Ukrainian hatred that the Kremlin’s response to the Crocus City Hall attack will only exacerbate. Immediately after the terrorist attack, Russia stepped up its bombardment of Ukraine, hitting Kyiv for the first time in six weeks. In Putin’s Russia, violence always begets further violence.