“We Just Don’t Like You”: Securitization, Coercion, and the Governance of Central Asian Migrant Labor in the Russian Federation after the Crocus City Hall Attack

Akhadov, Shokhjahon, Ахадов, Шохжахон, Ahadov, Shohjahon

Жамият ва инновациялар / Общество и инновации / Society and innovations · 2026-yil

Annotatsiya

Since the Crocus City Hall terror attack of March 2024, conditions have deteriorated sharply for the millions of Uzbek, Tajik, and Kyrgyz labor migrants whose remittances sustain their home economies and whose labor sustains substantial sectors of the Russian economy[1]. This paper examines that deterioration as a case study in the securitization of migration, drawing on human rights reporting, investigative journalism, official statements, and the academic literature on Russian migration governance to show how Russian authorities responded to the attack not by distinguishing between the perpetrators and the broader migrant population, but by intensifying administrative, legal, and coercive pressure on both[2]. Legislative amendments enacted since 2024 have expanded the executive's capacity to deport migrants without judicial review; an expanding registry-based surveillance apparatus now tracks migrants' legal status; entire economic sectors have been closed to non-citizen labor; and a documented pattern of coercion has pressed migrants — including individuals detained on minor administrative grounds — into signing military contracts and being deployed to the war in Ukraine. Concurrently, ultranationalist groups have conducted raids and assaults against migrant communities with limited consequences[3], while Russian authorities have begun recruiting Indian laborers as a substitute workforce, notwithstanding the absence among many recruits of Russian language proficiency or familiarity with local labor conditions[4]. Applying securitization theory and the migration-management literature specific to the post-Soviet space, the paper argues that the discourse of national security has functioned, in this case, as the legitimating vocabulary for what are, in substance, large-scale violations of migrants' rights, and that the resulting climate of fear is informative not only about migration governance but about the broader trajectory of the Russian political system. The paper concludes that the structural tension between Russia's economic dependence on Central Asian labor and its political incentive to scapegoat that same population is unlikely to be resolved within the current policy framework, with consequences likely to extend beyond the present crackdown and to reshape the wider relationship between Russia and the sending states of Central Asia.

Maqola ma’lumotlari
MualliflarAkhadov, Shokhjahon, Ахадов, Шохжахон, Ahadov, Shohjahon
JurnalЖамият ва инновациялар / Общество и инновации / Society and innovations
Nashr sanasi2026-06-25
Jild7
Son6/S
Betlar192-204
TilIngliz
DOI10.47689/2181-1415-vol7-iss6/s-pp192-204

Kalit so‘zlar

центральноазиатские мигранты, Россия, миграционная политика, ксенофобия, трудовая миграция, права человека, депортация, принудительная вербовка, война в Украине, секьюритизация, Central Asian migrants, Russia, migration policy, securitization, xenophobia, labor migration, human rights, deportation, coercive recruitment, Ukraine war, Markaziy Osiyo muhojirlari, Rossiya, migratsiya siyosati, xavfsizlashtirish, ksenofobiya, mehnat migratsiyasi, inson huquqlari, deportatsiya, majburiy jalb qilish, Ukraina urushi

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