Russia's War on Foreigners - By Anna Alekseyeva | Foreign Policy - 0 views
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Estimates of the number of illegal immigrants living in the country vary widely, but fall somewhere in the range of three to six million people. It is likely that around 30 percent of Moscow's immigrant population is illegal.
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According to Russia's Federal Migration Service director, Konstantin Romodanovsky, these middlemen have created a shadow economy that amounts to almost $1 billion. As with every lucrative industry in Russia, this shadow market inevitably has ties to the government.
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The cruelty that has become an all-too-common refrain in today's Russia stems, at least in part, from the ingrained belief in Russian exceptionalism -- the idea that Russian morality is unique and therefore beyond reproach. Originating in ancient Kievan Rus, this idea was propagated by the Orthodox Church in the Middle Ages, and was prominently displayed in the communist revolutionary claims of the 20th century.
