The Russian economy has become heavily dependent on migrant workers, largely from Central Asia. As the defence ministry tries to recruit them into the army, and certain extremists call for them to be sent home, the Kremlin is having to tread a fine line between economic pragmatism, nationalism and the immediate needs of the war.

The glittering new metro stations still being built and opened around Moscow are to a considerable extent built by migrant workers. Migrants also shovel the snow off roofs and pavements, pack boxes at the warehouses of Russia’s equivalents to Amazon and drive taxis. In all there are more than four million legal guest workers across the country, and possibly as many illegals.

They are, if anything, increasingly necessary as Russia’s economy faces a growing labour squeeze, thanks to the war effort and the consequent shift of the defence economy into full wartime mode, often running multiple shifts 24/7. The unemployment rate has fallen below 3 per cent, of which more than 2 per cent is reckoned to be ‘frictional’ – workers in between jobs – or people unable to work. That leaves only a small pool of potential extra workers, many of whom will not have the right skills or are simply living in the wrong parts of the country for the jobs they can do.

As a result, last year there was a reported shortfall of between 3.6 and 4.8 million workers, and this year that is expected to grow. This would seem to suggest the need for even more migrants, yet three forces are conspiring to make Russia an increasingly unattractive destination.

The first is economic: the decline in the value of the ruble. This fell sharply at the start of the war and while it has since stabilised, it has done so at a distinctly lower level. This has undermined the allure for workers who, in many cases, would come to raise money for their families back home.

The second is that the defence ministry’s efforts to recruit soldiers from the migrant community – offering not just wages well above those of unskilled labourers but also Russian citizenship for those serving six months at the front – are increasingly looking like press gangs. With Vladimir Putin desperate to avoid another unpopular mobilisation of reservists before the March presidential elections, all kinds of measures are being used to encourage or induce migrants to join the army.

The ‘Illegal 2023’ campaign carried out by the police and the Federal Migration Service has seen raids on construction sites and other locations where migrant labourers are often employed. Indeed, during the New Year’s Eve celebrations, the police detained some 3,000 in St Petersburg alone. However, these raids have been going well beyond their official goal of locating illegal, unregistered workers. Central Asians who had become naturalised Russian citizens have been directed to report to draft offices, and there are accounts of non-Russian citizens being faced with an ultimatum: arrest or ‘volunteering’ for the army.

Finally, the regime’s xenophobic rhetoric, while aimed at the West, is also sparking a new wave of generalised nationalism at home, one being exploited even by figures within the government. Reports of attacks on migrant communities have increased, but Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigatory Committee and something of a political bellwether, has been talking up the degree to which migrants are involved in crime, a popular nationalist talking point. A recent survey found 54 per cent of Russians supporting tighter limits on migrant workers.

They are not necessarily eager to take on the often hard jobs the migrants do, though. Knowing just how essential the migrant labourers are to the national economy, the technocrats within the government are trying to push back. Business ombudsman Boris Titov called fears that migrants are taking Russians’ jobs ‘completely unfounded,’ while the Interior Ministry – probably always happy to undermine an institutional rival like Bastrykin – released figures showing that migrants are actually less likely than Russians to commit crimes.

A key problem, though, is the lack of any clear steer from the top. There is no sense that the Kremlin is in any way behind this growing resentment of migrant workers. The question is rather whether it is willing to challenge the nationalists’ intolerant narratives. So far, true to form when faced with thorny political questions with no easy answers, Putin is keeping quiet.