Perhaps Vladimir Putin wasn’t in the mood to spend millions of dollars on a new holding facility for his deportees; or maybe he just didn’t have time before his next scheduled roundup. So he improvised, and simply repurposed Moscow’s Zhukovsky Airport to hold some of the Central Asian migrants recently arrested in the Kremlin’s latest ethnic purge.

Following the deadly terror attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue outside Moscow on March 22, 2024, four suspects were quickly arrested and charged, with 15 additional accomplices being detained thereafter. On August 4th of this year, the 19 Central Asian men — most of them from Tajikistan — went on trial for the crime. As yet, there has been no word of a verdict in the case.

Since that time, the Russian government has instituted a sweep of Central Asian migrants, ostensibly for deportation to their home countries as security risks. But they don’t all get to go home; and now, dozens have said they have been held at Zhukovsky Airport for more than a week.

According to one report, these men have been seen locked inside a cramped room with prison-style iron bunk beds; some have barely enough room to sit, while others lie on the concrete floor. There are no windows or air conditioners; a trash can overflows with empty packages from instant noodles. One man said:

“I have been here for 10 days. They give us instant soup once a day, nothing else. There is a man among us who suffers from a heart condition.” [RFE/RL, August 22, 2025.]

Another prisoner added:

“We told [Russian authorities] that we want to buy return tickets and go back to Tajikistan, but they are holding us here and not allowing us in or to return home.” [Id.]

Sound familiar?

Not surprising; the two situations are disturbingly similar. But there is one significant difference: the Central Asian migrants in Russia are not merely being deported. Thousands of them are being conscripted into the Russian military to fight in Ukraine . . . sometimes by means of enticements such as big bonuses, but more often through coercion and force.

One young man from Kazakhstan, Kiril Nysanbaev, had already served in the military at home, but then went to Russia in the fall of 2023 to find work in a factory at Chelyabinsk. A few months later, he called his family, saying he was in a migrant detention center. According to his twin sister, Kamilla:

“He said he was detained in connection with a robbery incident. He told me that Russian officers at the detention facility beat him and forced him to sign a contract [to fight in Ukraine].” [Azattyq Asia, RFE/RL, August 21, 2025.]

In March of this year, Kiril was killed in battle in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. His family were not notified of his death until June. [Id.]

Thousands of such stories are emerging concerning conscripts from the former Soviet Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Ukraine has established a state-run project, “I Want To Live,” offering soldiers fighting for Russia a means of safely surrendering to Ukrainian forces, rather than returning to Russia or to their home countries, where they would likely be facing criminal charges.

The project says it has obtained lists of names of more than 2,000 Uzbek nationals, more than 930 Tajiks, 529 Kazakh nationals, and 327 Kyrgyz citizens in the first six months of this year. And the numbers continue to grow. [Id.]

Russia, desperate to replace the hundreds of thousands of its own troops killed or wounded in Ukraine, earlier resorted to recruiting criminals from its prisons. Now it has added this new source of manpower — Central Asian migrants — often referred to as “cannon fodder” because of their lack of military experience or training and the likelihood they won’t survive.

To Vladimir Putin, they are just bodies.

It is nothing less than human trafficking, and it is a crime against humanity. Why can’t it be stopped?

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
8/24/25