Kristiina Silvan
The news about North Korean troops that have joined Russian forces to participate in Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine has spread quickly and generated a vivid debate within the expert community. While the exact number and role of the troops remain unclear, Pyongyang’s decision to deploy soldiers represents a pivotal moment of the war not only for Ukraine but also the international community.
However, North Koreans are not the first foreign citizens joining the war on the Russian side. Unlike the Ukrainian army, where the presence of international forces has been well documented, the Russian army has been portrayed as ethnically diverse but fully made up of Russian citizens. Ethnic minority Russians, such as the Buryats, Kazakhs, and Tuvans, are indeed not just present but overrepresented in the Russian army.
However, there have been persistent media reports about the recruitment and deployment of Central Asian migrants who either have no Russian citizenship or have recently received it through naturalization.
According to the Russian Interior Ministry, Russia currently hosts over 10 million labor migrants from Central Asia, primarily from the former Soviet states of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Many of these migrants are employed in low-skill positions in the shadow economy. Given the lack of economic opportunities in their countries of origin, the availability of jobs across Russia, and pre-existing migrant networks, the number of Central Asians in Russia is not declining despite the upsurge of anti-immigrant sentiment.
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