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By Jon Jackson
News Editor
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Police in St. Petersburg, Russia, recently conducted a raid at a vegetable warehouse where almost 400 foreign citizens were working, state media reported on Wednesday. More than 100 of the foreign workers had Russian passports and were subsequently taken to a military enlistment office to be registered for service.
The raid took place over the course of two days, according to the Kremlin-operated news agency Tass. Russian business news outlet RBC said the law enforcement officers had enacted a new procedure that can be used in migration raids of bringing migrants who are now Russian citizens to an enlistment office. Both outlets cited information about the raid that was released by the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region.
Following the start of Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russia has introduced multiple pieces of legislation that seemingly encourage migrants with Russian passports to serve in the military. One of the most notable examples of such legislation was a decree Putin signed in March that makes the path to citizenship easier for foreign nationals if they sign a one-year contract for military service during the war in Ukraine.
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The RBC noted that foreign nationals who have received Russian citizenship must register with a local military enlistment office within two weeks from the date of registration at their place of residence.
Valery Fadeev, chairman of the Kremlin-consulting body Human Rights Council, has suggested that foreigners being issued Russian passports should simultaneously be registered with the military, Tass wrote Wednesday on its Telegram channel. Otherwise, he reportedly said, they will forget to enlist.
Newsweek reached out to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs via email for comment.
St. Petersburg has been the site of several raids in recent weeks that targeted migrant workers. According to Tass, more than a hundred illegal migrants were detained at wholesale markets in the city's Frunzensky district on August 1. More than 300 migrant workers were detained by police in another raid at a wholesale business this month.
Even more recently, Tass reported that about 700 people were taken to police stations on Friday after a raid on migrants in St. Petersburg's Apraksin Dvor district.
A spokesperson for St. Petersburg's police department reportedly told Tass that 482 people detained in the Friday incident were eventually released. Meanwhile, 140 were referred to migrations services and 22 were kept at the police station. The news agency did not say if any migrants taken into custody in the previous raids in St. Petersburg this month were brought to military enlistment offices.
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