The Crocus City Hall terrorist attack in Moscow on March 22, 2024 triggered strong anti-migrant sentiment in Russian society. Since then, the nation’s authorities have been imposing stricter migration rules. But how does this impact millions of Central Asian labor migrants and their families living and working in Russia?

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia became a major destination for migrant workers from Central Asia. According to the official Russian statistics, there are currently almost four million citizens of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan living in Russia, along with approximately 670,000 illegal migrants.

Rosstat (the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation) reports that 260,400 migrants arrived in Russia from January to July this year, with 60% (about 156,200) coming from Central Asian countries. The majority of them are citizens of Tajikistan. In 2023, over one million Tajiks have moved to Russia in search of work.

With a large community of its citizens in Russia, the Tajik government seems to be working to not only improve their legal status in the Russian Federation, but also to coordinate some of their actions, particularly in the field of culture. On April 9, in Dushanbe, a meeting took place between Tajikistan’s Minister of Labor, Migration, and Employment of the Population, Solekhi Kholmakhmadzoda, and leaders and activists of the Tajik diaspora living in Russia.

Tajikistan initiated the summit after Russia began testing migrant children on their knowledge of the Russian language before admitting them to school. Starting April 1, a law came into effect that prevents Russian schools from enrolling migrant children who do not speak Russian or are in Russia illegally. This measure is just the tip of the iceberg in the Kremlin’s plans to regulate the migrant issue in the country.

Alexey Nechaev, the leader of the New People party – one of the handful of the so-called systemic opposition parties in Russia – said on March 19 that “artificial intelligence should be made a new tool for monitoring migrants… It is unfair that Russian citizens are digitized from head to toe, while migrants continue to live with paper documents without any problems,” Nechaev stressed, pointing out that monitoring migrants’ activities through AI could “help keep a closer eye on what foreigners are doing and make it easier to track illegal money flows.”

Last year, the Liberal Democratic Party – another ‘systemic opposition’ group – proposed restricting the rights of migrant workers to bring their families into Russia. This initiative raised concerns in neighboring Kazakhstan. The ambassador of the largest Central Asian nation expressed unease to Moscow about such ambitions, referring to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the foundation of which, as he highlighted, is based on ensuring the four freedoms – the movement of goods, services, capital, and labor.

Russian reports, however, claim that, as a result of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan’s membership in the EAEU, their citizens living in Russia have a much better status than those from other Central Asian states. Despite that, on April 14, Kyrgyzstan’s Foreign Ministry summoned Russia’s ambassador to demand answers over reports that Moscow police used violence against Kyrgyz nationals during a raid on a bathhouse.

Such a move represents a humiliation for the Kremlin, considering Kyrgyzstan’s heavily dependence on Russia, especially in terms of remittances from Kyrgyz labor migrants living in the Russian Federation. But given the ongoing war in Ukraine and Russia’s isolation from the West, Moscow is not in a position to jeopardize its relations with Bishkek over the migrant issue.

That, however, does not mean Russia will stop quietly passing laws that could, at least to a certain extent, change the status of Kyrgyz, and other Central Asian migrants in the Russian Federation. According to State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, the Russian Parliament has initiated and passed 15 laws related to combating illegal migration since 2024. In his view, “It is important that these laws are now effectively enforced.”

Nevertheless, the Kremlin must strike a delicate balance between the growing anti-migrant sentiment in the country and its ambitions to preserve the remnants of its influence in Central Asia. That is why, despite 66% of Russians supporting a ban on wearing niqabs in public places – a measure already implemented in most Central Asian countries – Moscow has remained silent on the issue.

Moreover, the Kremlin is under pressure to stop, or at least significantly reduce, the influx of Central Asian migrants. To strike a balance, the authorities in Russia’s Tatarstan region – the fourth most popular destination for labor workers from Central Asia – reportedly aim to attract young female workers from Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.

Research Associate at Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Yulia Florinskaya, however, has claimed that in the coming years the number of foreign workers in Russia will remain the same, with the majority still being citizens of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. Currently, she argues, no other country can compete with them in terms of the number of labor migrants coming to Russia.

Moscow needs migrants to help address the labor shortage, as Russia lacked around 4.8 million workers in 2023. Still, according to a Human Rights Watch report, Central Asian labor migrants in Russia experience “increased xenophobic harassment and violence,” with the Russian Defense Ministry continuing to forcibly recruit them to fight in Ukraine. It is, therefore, no surprise that the number of migrants in Russia declined by 18% in 2024 as compared to 2023.

Migration – be it from Central Asia or other parts of the world – remains both a necessity and a challenge for Russia. As pressure mounts from within, in the coming months and years the Kremlin will have a hard time navigating a complex balancing act between anti-migrant sentiment at home, the country’s economic needs, and its geopolitical interests in Central Asia.