Migration to Russia

The end of the Cold War gave rise to a new migratory system with Russia at its core (Ivakhnyuk, 2009; Sadovskaya, 2012, p. 85). According to the latest statistics compiled by the United Nations, there were over 11 million international migrants in Russia as of 2013, making it the second most important destination in the world, after the United States (UN, 2013b). The majority of migrants to Russia come from former member states of the Soviet Union, which is reorganized into the more loosely-structured CIS. The IOM reported that CIS nationals accounted for 53 percent of migrants to Russia in 2006; this figure did not take into account undocumented migrants, who were believed to exceed the number of documented migrants (IOM, 2008, p. 26). Some Russian scholars estimate that around 70-80 percent of population movements to Russia is of irregular nature (Ivakhnyuk, 2009; Zayonchkovskaya, 1999a). In a context where demographic decline29 is seen as one of the three main threats to national security, together with technological breakdown and territorial defense issues (Herd & Sargsyan, 2007, p. 51), further growth in immigration is both imperative and inevitable.

The current pool of irregular migrants in Russia is a mix of former Soviet citizens, who came to Russia from other Soviet republics with Soviet passports immediately after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, whose residence in Russia is not necessarily treated by the authorities as illegal, and more recent economic migrants from the CIS and beyond, who are subject to harsher governance measures and more negative public discourse. There are no reliable statistics for irregular migrants and estimates vary widely from 1.5 million in 2002 (by the Ministry of Interior) to 15 million in 2003 (by Russian media) (Ivakhnyuk, 2009, p. 42). Variations in the estimates provided by academics tend to be less significant. Mukomel (2005, p. 196) believed that there were 4.9 million irregular migrants in Russia as of 2005. Ivakhnyuk (2009, p. 43), however, suggested that the total number of irregular migrants could amount to five to seven million if seasonal workers were accounted for. CIS countries are responsible for the largest volume of both regular and irregular migration to Russia (IOM, 2008, p. 55).