Moscow Hopes Bishkek Can Help Control Kyrgyz Migrant Workers in Russia

Executive Summary:

• Moscow is relying more heavily on local ethnic militias  made up of immigrants to ensure order in Russian cities as the war in Ukraine continues and more Russians are sent to the front.
• Moscow is allowing Bishkek to play a role in supervising Kyrgyz militias in Russian cities, raising the specter that Kyrgyzstan rather than Russia will control them, which could threaten Russian police control over these areas.
• Moscow’s intention to improve Russian control may have exactly the opposite effect and spark more conflict between ethnic militias and the increasingly active Russian nationalist militias and police.

Popular militias made up of immigrants have been forming across the Russian Federation in cities with significant diaspora populations. These militias are composed of both citizen and non-citizen migrants. Ostensibly, these militias are meant to work with police to enforce laws and keep the peace between these communities and the Russian majority. These groups, however, also defend these immigrant communities against Russian police and Russian nationalist groups such as the Russian Community (see EDM, October 15). These immigrant militias are becoming models for indigenous and Roma populations, groups that the Russian police have not always been able to control (Window on Eurasia, October 31). As a result, over the last several weeks, Moscow has quietly entered into agreements with Kyrgyzstan and possibly other countries to have officers come to the Russian Federation to work with these immigrant groups, an action Bishkek has acknowledged openly but Moscow has sought to downplay (T.me/mvd_official_kg, November 5; T.me/mediamvd, November 7). Amid the escalating tensions regarding immigrants, the Russian media’s approach to downplay the issue is understandable but no longer sustainable. After an article by Russian journalist Vladislav Maltsev appeared in Zavtra on November 10 entitled “’Kyrgyz Policemen’ and ‘National Militias’ are Already in Our Cities,” the Russian journalist pointedly asked whether the state was losing control of order (Zavtra, November 10). Maltsev’s article is sure to trigger a flood of commentaries in the coming days and may even put pressure on Moscow to change course, and thus making the issue worthy of close attention. 

According to Maltsev, “migrant ghettos that have formed in many Russian cities and are already acquiring their own official security forces either in the form of militias created by the immigrants themselves or by foreign interior ministry offices who [with Moscow’s permission] have come to Russia in uniform.” (See Zavtra, April 14, 2021; EDM, October 22 for more on migrant ghettos in Russian cities.) Maltsev suggests that many Russians will be concerned about how these foreign officers are not being subordinated to Russian police, but have diplomatic immunity and can thus interact with migrants with little regard for Moscow. Specifically, he notes that Bishkek officials intend these representatives to work in an “independent” and “extraterritorial” fashion, much like European officials did in China in the 19th century, which will alarm a large swath of Russians. Such terms are alarmist and are intended to be.

Maltsev says what is occurring in Siberian and Russian Far Eastern cities such as Bratsk and Tyumen are far more disturbing and concrete. There, he reports, citing statements by local branches of the Russian interior ministry, ever more migrants, confronted by anti-immigrant moves from the Russian authorities and population, have sought to form ethnic militias. Adding that, to a lesser extent, similar trends are taking place in European Russia. The Russian authorities have told them that only citizens of the Russian Federation have the right to form militias, but that is less of an obstacle than many may think, Maltsev continues. Many migrants have now taken Russian citizenship, and Moscow has encouraged them to do so. Over the last two months, these migrants with Russian citizenship have been forming ethnic militias in cities east of the Urals. They now are going to be assisted by officers from Kyrgyzstan, raising the likelihood of new and larger clashes between these migrant groups and Russian nationalists, such as the Russian Community (Window on Eurasia, October 23; see EDM, October 15, 29). 

The danger of such clashes was highlighted last month in a suburb of Chelyabinsk, where Russian nationalist groups fought with Roma, who had taken control of local administrative bodies. This tension is increasingly found across Russia, where non-ethnic Russians, immigrant or indigenous communities, have assumed sufficient control over local institutions and feel free to ignore Russian laws and practices. This problem is only going to get worse, Russian journalist Kirill Shulika says. “It is not surprising that already various groups such as ‘the Russian Community’ have emerged to assume the role of militias” and that these will grow as veterans of the war in Ukraine return home. (On that prospect more generally, see Window on Eurasia, September 15, 2023.)  Moscow has been searching for some solution but has remained uncertain, although the agreement with the Kyrgyzstan interior ministry suggests it may now act on that more generally. Those who assume that the local police can handle this spreading problem are profoundly wrong. Instead, the fighting is likely to be not between the police and the closed diasporas but between the closed diasporas and militias that neither Moscow nor the regional governments will be able to control. If Moscow cannot come up with a more effective strategy, Shulika suggests, these trends will open the way to a war that will shake the Russian Federation to its foundations (Rosbalt, October 29).   

Moscow’s decision to allow interior ministry officers from foreign countries, such as Kyrgyzstan, to try to take control of this situation is an effort in that direction. Both that the Kremlin is feeding demands among immigrants for the formation of their own militias and that Russian officials are playing all this down suggest that such Russian invitations to foreign police forces are an act of desperation. Moscow will either have to reverse course or face even more problems ahead. Despite all the Putin regime’s coercive resources, it is unavoidable that Moscow is losing control of the streets and districts of Russian cities to militias, both Russian and non-Russian.