At a memorial service this week exterior the live performance corridor the place Islamist extremists are suspected of finishing up a lethal terrorist assault, one among Russia’s hottest pro-Kremlin rappers warned “right-wing and far-right teams” that they have to not “incite ethnic hatred.”
At a televised assembly in regards to 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 mentioned he wouldn’t permit anybody to “sow the toxic seeds of hatred, panic and discord in our multiethnic society.”
Within 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 concern that the tragedy may spur ethnic strife inside Russia. Whereas Mr. Putin and his safety chiefs are accusing Ukraine — with out proof — of getting helped manage 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 struggle in Ukraine. Members of Muslim minority teams make up a major 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 operating and its navy provide chain buzzing.
However lots of the most fervent supporters of Mr. Putin’s invasion are Russian nationalists whose widespread, 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,” mentioned one. “The scenario now has proven that Russian society is on the brink.”
In consequence, the Kremlin is strolling a high-quality line, making an attempt to maintain struggle supporters comfortable by promising harder motion towards migrants whereas making an attempt to forestall 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 large, critical menace,” Sergey Markov, a pro-Putin political analyst in Moscow and a former Kremlin adviser, mentioned in a telephone interview. “That’s why all efforts are being made now to relax public opinion.”
Caught within the center are hundreds of thousands of migrant staff and ethnic-minority Russians who’re already dealing with a rise on metropolis streets within the form of racial profiling that was commonplace even earlier than the assault. Svetlana Gannushkina, a longtime Russian human rights defender, mentioned 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 in search of Tajiks” and “noticed an individual with such an look.”
“They want migrants as cannon fodder” for the Russian Military “and as labor,” Ms. Gannushkina mentioned 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 mentioned.
Almost 1,000,000 residents of Tajikistan, which has a inhabitants of about 10 million, have been registered in Russia as migrant staff final yr, in accordance with authorities statistics. They’re among the many hundreds of 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 development to manufacturing facility work.
A supervisor of a meals enterprise in Moscow that employs Tajiks mentioned 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 mentioned, requesting anonymity as a result of she feared repercussions for chatting with a Western journalist.
“There’s already no provide of labor due to the S.V.O.,” she added, utilizing the frequent Russian abbreviation for the Kremlin’s “particular navy operation” towards 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 struggle 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 broaden Russia’s affect.
Mr. Putin’s authorities is already making an attempt to indicate the general public that it stands able to take motion towards migrants. A high lawmaker proposed on Tuesday that firearms gross sales be banned to newly naturalized Russian residents. Mr. Krasnov, the highest prosecutor, mentioned 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 based mostly on the necessity to guarantee the protection of residents and the financial expediency of utilizing overseas labor,” he added.
Removed from making an attempt to maintain foreigners out, Russia has made it simpler for migrants to grow to be Russian residents because the begin of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. A main 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 grow to be commonplace in Russian information reviews.
In consequence, Tajik migrants in Moscow now concern not solely deportation, but additionally the likelihood that they might be pressed into service in Ukraine, mentioned Saidanvar, 25, a Tajik human rights activist who lately left Moscow. He requested that his final identify not be used for safety causes.
“Tajiks are actually afraid,” he mentioned in an interview, “that the Russian authorities will begin sending Tajiks to the entrance en masse to struggle as a kind of revenge towards our Tajik individuals.”
In his speeches on the struggle, 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 making an attempt 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 be more and more on the middle of his response to Friday’s terrorist assault, which the Islamic State claimed accountability for and American officers say was carried out by a department of the extremist group. On Tuesday, the pinnacle 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 making an attempt to indicate the general public that it’s taking issues about migration into consideration.
“They’re going to seize the Tajiks and blame the Ukrainians,” Ms. Gannushkina, the human rights defender, mentioned. “It was clear from the very starting.”
Nonetheless, Mr. Markov, the pro-Kremlin analyst, mentioned he noticed tensions over migration coverage even inside Mr. Putin’s highly effective safety institution. Anti-immigrant regulation enforcement and intelligence officers, he mentioned, have been at odds with a military-industrial complicated that wants migrant labor.
“It’s a contradiction,” he mentioned. “And this terror assault has sharply aggravated this drawback.”