Military investigators jointly with representatives of military registration officers and police have conducted raids in a number of cities in Sverdlovsk oblast over the first quarter of this year to identify persons who have received Russian citizenship, but have not been registered for military service, Interfax reported on April 11, citing the Military Investigative Directorate of Russia’s Investigative Committee for Central Military District.
Since the beginning of 2024, the raids have reportedly resulted in identifying more than 1,340 persons of this category in the Sverdlovsk oblast. “More than 920 of them have already been put on military registers, and more than 130 of them have been sent for military service in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation both by conscription and by contract,” an official sources within the Military investigative Directorate told Interfax in an interview.
According to him, the raids have been conducted in Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Tagil, Pevomayskoye, Bogdanovich and Sukhoy Log on places of mass concentration of labor migrants – food, markets, wholesale vegetable warehouses, dormitories, and so forth.
Recall, Russia has ‘punished’ Tajik migrants with entry denials and deportations after the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack. Since the deadly attack on the Crocus City Hall near Moscow police raids on migrants have reportedly intensified across Russia.
In late March, Russian police officers have conducted mass raids in a number of Russian cities on places where migrants stay. In St. Petersburg alone, the courts ordered the deportation of more than 400 migrants. According to data from the Russian Ministry of Interior, the raids conducted in Moscow resulted in deportation of more than 800 illegal migrants.
The Russian Interior Ministry says Russia is home to an estimated 1 million Tajik migrant workers and others who are dual citizens. Working in Russia provides a lifeline for them as there are not many jobs or other opportunities in impoverished Tajikistan.
Meanwhile, some sources say 652,014 Tajik nationals, including 554,804 men and 97,210 women, traveled abroad last year seeking better employment opportunities, which is 123,564 people less than 2022 (in 2022, 775,578 Tajik labor migrants traveled abroad, primarily to Russia, but also to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan).
