In Russia, street gangs that hunt foreigners – especially darker-skinned migrants from former Soviet republics in Central Asia and the Caucasus, but also Jews and blacks – are a common phenomenon.

Ultranationalist groups including an estimated 50,000 violence-prone skinheads and several neo-Nazi groups, are promoting xenophobia. They feed on and exacerbate latent anti-immigrant sentiments in the wider population. “Chyorni”, the Russian word for black, is used by many Russians in various forms to refer to all people with darker skin. As is happening in many other countries, there’s some paranoia about a rising tide of migrant labor and immigrants. Combined with a drop in Russia’s Slavic population, this threatens to polarize Russian society and to undermine the basis of Russia as a multiethnic state.

Here’s a graph on xenophobia in Russia:

And here are some data on violent hate crimes:

(source; data to be taken with a pinch of salt since official statistics are notoriously unreliable; many attacks are classified as “hooliganism” and statistics therefore underestimate the real extent of the problem)

Some even speak of “Weimar Russia“, a fledgling democracy sinking into the hell of right-wing extremism. That’s probably paranoia as well, but there is a real danger of growing anti-immigrant violence.

“Fitness clubs” or youth centers, often affiliated with nationalist groups, teach young Russians close-quarters combat skills, sometimes even military and explosives techniques. Many of these people have close ties with security forces. Even Putin is playing with xenophobia, claiming that “foreign agents” are destabilizing the country.

After years of inaction, the Russian government is taking the problem more seriously but still fails to prosecute in many cases. As a result, there’s a sense of impunity which is likely to promote more violence. Some of the inaction can be explained by the mistaken belief, held by many Russian leaders, that the World War II victory of the USSR over Nazi Germany immunized them from the threat of neo-Nazism.

More on hate crime and intolerance in Russia here.

More on migration here.