Leaving because there are not enough opportunities at home

In July 2026, on a construction site in Moscow, migrants, including citizens of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, were forced to move around in a squat during a raid. According to one of the Uzbek workers, people were first gathered together and forced to move in a humiliating manner, and only after that were their documents checked. Those who were made to walk in a squat had their documents in order, according to him.

This is not the first such incident. In 2025, during raids in Moscow and St. Petersburg, migrants reported beatings, insults, and other forms of abuse by law enforcement officers. In Kazan, in January 2025, an Uzbek migrant said that during a raid at the central market, Russian law enforcement officers used force against citizens of Uzbekistan.

International human rights organizations have described this situation as a broader trend. A study based on interviews with 20 migrants from Central Asia, including four citizens of Uzbekistan, documented ethnic profiling, arbitrary detentions, violence, extortion, and degrading treatment. Cases of pressure exerted on migrants following the attack on "Crocus City Hall" were also described.

But the issue begins even earlier than when a person encounters Russian police. Why does one find oneself in a situation where such treatment is endured?

For many citizens of Uzbekistan, labor migration does not begin with a desire to see another country, but with a lack of opportunities at home. In 2025, there were officially about 744.9 thousand unemployed people. At the same time, the statistics themselves do not show the full extent of the problem: a person may formally have a job but not have a stable income sufficient for their family, or find no employment in their place of residence. Official unemployment statistics show only the registered and statistically defined part of this problem.

Even the increase in job vacancies does not automatically mean an improvement in workers' conditions. In the fourth quarter of 2025, the number of vacancies in construction increased by 32.6 percent, while real wages in this sector rose by only 0.6 percent. Jobs are appearing, but this does not necessarily mean work that allows a person to abandon migration.

In the first half of 2026, Uzbekistan received $9.3 billion in remittances, which is 13 percent more than the previous year. The Central Bank links this growth, among other things, to high demand for labor and higher wages abroad. Behind this sum are people who live away from their families for months and work in a foreign legal system.

Therefore, labor migration for Uzbekistan is not just an economic issue. It shows how protected a person is when their only advantage in the labor market becomes their own labor power, while their weakness remains documents, migration status, and dependence on an employer.

Russia and the price of vulnerability

Russian rules for migrants have become increasingly stringent in recent years. In 2025, a registry of controlled individuals was introduced, expanding the state's ability to restrict the rights of foreigners with issues regarding their documents or status. Human rights defenders have also documented regular raids, arbitrary detentions, and discriminatory measures against Central Asian nationals.

For any individual without a stable migration status, such an inspection can have serious consequences. The employer gains an additional lever of pressure, while the worker begins to fear contacting the police or labor inspectorate. If this is compounded by passport retention, delayed wages, or threats of deportation, the formal right to complain no longer means the real possibility of exercising that right.

This is most dangerous in cases of military recruitment. Human rights organizations documented situations where migrants were offered contracts to sign with the Russian Ministry of Defense after detentions or under threat of deportation.

One Uzbek migrant said that after being detained due to document issues, he was offered a choice between deportation and participation in the war. According to him, Russian police forced him to sign documents presented as deportation papers, although they turned out to be a military contract. This was reported by the local Uzbek publication Kun.uz.

In another case, a 23-year-old citizen of Uzbekistan left for Russia to work, but, according to his father and the young man himself, was tricked into going to war. He ended up among a group of about 100 soldiers of various nationalities, refused to follow orders, and, according to him, was beaten and locked up. In July 2026, an Uzbek court sentenced him to 3.6 years of restriction of freedom.

It cannot be stated that every citizen of Uzbekistan who ended up in the Russian army was coerced. Some may have consciously signed a contract, counting on money or Russian citizenship. But for a person located at a temporary detention center, lacking documents and dependent on the decision of a Russian law enforcement officer, the concept of voluntary choice becomes much more complex.

According to human rights projects, in 2026, 12,666 citizens of Central Asian countries were linked to contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense, including 4,853 citizens of Uzbekistan. These figures do not show the full number of Uzbek citizens who ended up in the Russian army. However, even they show the scale of what is happening. Cases of recruiting labor migrants can no longer be perceived as isolated stories.

An investigation by independent journalists identified the identities of at least 229 citizens of Uzbekistan who died while serving in the Russian army. This is not a complete list of the deceased, but only names confirmed through open sources. Behind each such surname stands a family that waited for the person who left to earn money.

This year another tragedy related to the fate of Uzbek migrants in Russia sparked widespread discussion in the Uzbek segment of social networks. In August 2026, seven citizens of Uzbekistan died in Tatarstan as a result of a drone attack. They were not military personnel and were in Russia to earn money. They came there to work but died in a country that had become a zone of military risks, to which they themselves had no relation.

At the same time, Uzbekistan does not publish full statistics on the deaths of its citizens abroad, the repatriation of their bodies, cases of violence, detentions, and labor exploitation. As a result, it remains difficult to understand how widespread these problems are and how effectively the state responds to them. For a country whose economy is largely dependent on remittances from migrants, such opacity appears particularly problematic.

Citizen protection should not depend on politics

Labor migration has long ceased to be merely a matter of earning money. For thousands of Uzbek citizens, it is linked to the risk of violence, exploitation, arbitrary detentions, and, in some cases, the threat of being drawn into someone else's war. Meanwhile, state response often becomes noticeable only after a violation has received public attention.

This issue is particularly acute in relations with Russia. Tashkent's economic ties and interests are understandable, but they should not determine the limits of citizen protection. If the humiliation of migrants repeats itself even after diplomatic appeals, then existing measures are insufficient. Citizen protection cannot depend on how convenient or inconvenient this topic becomes for the state.

Migrants remain citizens of Uzbekistan both within and outside the country. They send billions of dollars home, support their families, and sustain the economy, but in return they have a right to expect not only recognition of their economic contribution. They have a right to protection, access to assistance, and respect for human dignity.

Uzbekistan cannot control the actions of Russian authorities, but it can much more clearly outline the consequences of violations against its citizens, seek access to them after detention, and consistently protect their rights. Otherwise, diplomatic caution risks turning into silent acceptance of a situation in which a citizen is left alone facing a system significantly stronger than themselves.