On the eve of the informal summit of CIS heads of state, which took place on December 28 in St. Petersburg, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with his Tajik counterpart Emomali Rahmon
The topics that the leaders of both countries managed to touch on can be roughly divided into two main blocks: Russian troops in Tajikistan and Tajik migrants in Russia. Moreover, both of these issues are distinguished by both increased complexity and tangible pain.
Let’s start with the first one. Ever since the collapse of the USSR, Tajikistan (in Dushanbe and Bokhtar) has hosted the 201st Russian military base – the country’s largest military facility outside its borders. The base includes motorized rifle, tank, artillery, reconnaissance units, air defense units, NBC defense and communications units. In fact, the 201st base is a military outpost of Russia in Central Asia and one of the most combat-ready units of the RF Armed Forces. And it’s not just words. The personnel of the base is formed exclusively by contract soldiers, almost all of whom have managed to fight in Syria.
Such an impressive military representation in the region allows Russia to control not only the Tajik-Afghan border, monitoring and timely preventing access from the territory of the restless southern neighbors of militants and international terrorists, illicit arms trafficking and heroin drug trafficking, which flourished during the twenty-year American occupation of Afghanistan, but and perform another, in my opinion, much more important function. In fact, the 201st military base is an element of Russian influence on the whole of Central Asia, and not so much a brute force as a subtle psychological one.
For the same official Dushanbe and personally for Mr. Rakhmon, who thirty years ago was Comrade Rakhmonov, People’s Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Tajik SSR, and after 1992 the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Tajikistan (that is, the head of state during the period when the post of President of the country was abolished) , Russian troops are a guarantee of security and stability in the republic, protecting it from both external enemies and internal political upheavals.
“Our military base, which we created at one time, is still developing, it is one of the most important elements of security in the region. I know that you, too, are in constant contact with our military, control the situation, help our military there so that they live in normal conditions”, said in this regard, addressing the President of Tajikistan, Vladimir Putin.
A similar situation is in the neighboring republic of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan. Last year’s unrest, which led to a change in the country’s leadership, did not develop into a real civil war, largely due to the intervention of Russian diplomats and the presence of our military nearby.
In addition, during a meeting in St. Petersburg, the Russian leader noted that “the situation on the border with Afghanistan causes a certain alarm, concern, this is an objective circumstance.” Developing the president’s thought, Russian Ambassador to Tajikistan Igor Lyakin-Frolov announced that Russia is starting the construction of a modern border outpost in the republic just on the border with Afghanistan.
“Within the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a decision was made to strengthen the Tajik-Afghan border. Another contribution of Russia is the construction of a border post in the Shamsiddin Shokhin region, money has been allocated, an agreement has been signed, this project is entering a practical phase, a modern frontier post will be built,” – said the diplomat.
In general, our presence in Tajikistan helps us to solve complex geopolitical problems and to keep all the Central Asian republics from falling apart following the example of Ukraine. And they have enough elements of internal instability there. And small-town nationalism and Russophobia have recently begun to raise their heads.
But, as you know, you have to pay for everything. And not only a risk to the lives of our servicemen (which is obvious, but understandable), but also problems in Russia itself. I am talking about migration, primarily illegal, which, in many respects, occurs precisely from the territory of the countries of Central Asia.
And here the matter is not limited to Tajikistan alone. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for 2019, almost 20 million people were registered for migration, of which 13 million are citizens of the republics of the former USSR, most of whom came from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. It is clear that due to the covid restrictions of 2020 and 2021, this “flow of tourists” has somewhat diminished, but the structure of migration has not changed at all.
At the same time, when registering with the FMS, only every third representative of the Central Asian republics indicates work as the purpose of the trip, basically everyone writes “private” or “other”. In fact, almost 100% of Uzbeks, Tajiks, and also Kyrgyz join the ranks of illegal migrants. They are joining the already existing business of their national diasporas and are ready to do whatever work they pay for.
oh, who used the services of taxi aggregators in Russia, knows that in 8 cases out of 10, a driver with a characteristic appearance and a hard-to-pronounce surname will be behind the wheel of a given car. It would seem that God is with them. Vaughn, in New York, most of the taxi drivers are Hindus, and nothing, they are used to it. But the point is different. If, for example, there is an agreement between Russia and Kyrgyzstan on the mutual recognition of issued driver’s licenses and, when going on a trip with a Kyrgyz driver, you can be more or less confident in his qualifications, then there are no such agreements with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. And their professional qualities remain on the conscience of the aggregator, which is the essence of a thoughtless machine that does not bear any responsibility to the passenger at all. Yes, this is a special case, but very indicative.
But the most serious problem associated with migrants has recently become massive fights and clashes, when various ethnic groups divide, so to speak, the territory, preferring to resolve issues by force, without disdaining at the same time and outright stabbing. Police reports on the detention of rioters have increased significantly, and the number of migrants sent home is already measured in hundreds of thousands. But new ones are arriving in their place.
And it also happens that our own Ministry of Internal Affairs, either as a broad gesture, or as a New Year’s gift to the President of Tajikistan who has arrived in the capital of the Russian Empire, on its own initiative lifts the ban on entry to Russia from 120 thousand citizens of the Central Asian republic who committed according to Russian law enforcement officers, minor violations on the territory of the Russian Federation. Doubtful generosity, to put it mildly.
Ethnic crime, breeding ground for illegal migration, is not an invention of sensationalist-hungry tabloid journalists. No, this is a very real factor influencing the sense of security of Russians and creating a constant headache for the guardians of the law. Here is the official information of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for only eight months of the current 2021.
“Foreign citizens and stateless persons committed 24.7 thousand crimes on the territory of the Russian Federation, which is 5.9% more than in eight months of 2020, including 19.2 thousand crimes by citizens of the CIS member states. Their share was 77.8%”, the ministry says, stressing that the situation is only getting worse every year.
In addition, most of the visitors do not yet speak Russian. And this problem is so acute that President Putin even spoke about it during his yesterday’s meeting with Rahmon. Having specified that at the moment there are 1 million Tajiks in Russia, the Russian leader once again emphasized that “training in the framework of learning the Russian language is the surest way to adapt people so that they can work calmly and feel comfortable”.
Paying tribute to the diplomatic style of communication of the leader of the Russian Federation, we will not, nevertheless, harbor illusions that his words were dictated only by concern for the comfort of foreign citizens. No, it was a completely transparent hint to the President of Tajikistan about an existing problem that needs to be solved, and preferably urgently.
What can happen if this is not done becomes clear from the statement of the press center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, which reported that starting from January 1, 2022, foreign citizens convicted of violating Russian labor laws may not only be fined, as was the case before, but also expelled from Russia. And the requirement for knowledge of the Russian language for migrants in these norms is spelled out in black and white. So the jokes are over and no one else will glue the inscriptions in the Moscow metro in Uzbek and Tajik, as well as persuade “guests from the South” to learn Russian. If you don’t want to – go out!
Yes, in conditions when Russia is feeling the consequences of the demographic pit of the dashing 90s, it seems that it cannot do without an influx of workers from abroad. And good-neighborly relations with the former republics of the USSR and geopolitical interests force the leadership of the Russian Federation to treat migrants from Central Asian countries with noticeable loyalty, for whom money brought from Russia is a significant part of the income of their national economies.
But those at the top are aware of the fact that the problems that migrants create within Russian society can lead to a social explosion of such a scale, in comparison with which Kondopoga will seem childish. And, apparently, no one intends to risk it.
Alexey Belov, IA Anti-fascist