In early October 2024, a video circulated online showing men in camouflage forcing several people, allegedly Tajik migrants who were harassing women at a checkpoint between Russia and Kazakhstan, out of their cars. We have verified the accuracy of such publications.
On October 3, a message lasting more than 2 minutes went viral on Telegram channels. video showing men dressed in camouflage roughly dragging people out of cars and placing them face down on the ground. They can be heard speaking loudly in Russian, using obscene and swear words. Also in the recording you can recognize the sound of a working stun gun. The video is accompanied by a caption (the author's spelling and punctuation are preserved): “On the Kazakh-Russian border in the Chelyabinsk region, Tajiks began to molest women before they even really entered Russia. When one of them refused, the Tajik began to open his paws. As a result, the Russian security forces put everyone face to face on the floor and kicked them out of the country.”
With this comment, the video was published by such channels as “Pozdnyakov 3.0"(375,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Voblya Kursk"(156,000), "First People's | News" (118,000) and "What happened?"(88,000).
First time video appeared in the afternoon on October 2 in the community “Emergency | Road accident Chelyabinsk" on VKontakte. The caption reads: “At the Bugristoye border, according to eyewitnesses, a group of foreign citizens started a skirmish, after which a squad was called.” Soon about the incident wrote Telegram channel Baza (526,000 views). According to his information, there was a conflict between those who arrived at the border over places in the queue to go through control, and Russian border guards and police “rigidly calmed down” the motorists.
“Bugristoye” is a checkpoint in the Chelyabinsk region; on the Kazakh side it corresponds to the “Kairak” checkpoint in the Kostanay region. The viral video was filmed quite far from the Russian border checkpoint, but in the background you can see a building, the lower part of which is painted white or gray, and the upper part is painted blue. Judging by pictures on Yandex.Maps, the complex of buildings at the Bugristoye checkpoint is designed similarly. It is difficult to determine exactly where the video was filmed - in the border zone, filming (and especially the passage of Google Street View cars and similar services) is prohibited, so photos and videos from there are few. The security forces captured by the author of the video do not have identification marks, but they speak Russian (however, Kazakh border guards can also use it). “Verified” did not find any comments about the situation published on the official resources of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, the National Security Committee of Kazakhstan and their respective regional divisions.
It is not clear from the video which country’s citizens were forced to get out of their cars and lie on the ground; they do not write about this in the original source. The car passing by at the beginning of the video is indeed registered in Tajikistan (the country code TJ is indicated on the left side of the license plate). However, the license plates of the cars from which the security forces pulled people out are not visible on the recording.
Chelyabinsk publication 74.ru with reference to social network users reports, that the conflict allegedly arose in a separate lane for citizens of Tajikistan. According to information Lenta.ru, five people stood in line to extend their stay in Russia (according to the laws of the Russian Federation, this is can be done including at the checkpoint), and then they started swearing. The version about the conflict in the queue is confirmed by the video itself - towards the end of the video (2:05) the voice of a man is heard saying: “Who started the fight here?” Kazakh media told about the incident mainly with reference to Baza and did not provide additional information.
Citizens of Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and a number of other countries can enter Russia without a visa and be in the country for 90 days out of 180 consecutive days. This means that it is impossible to complete a visa run (that is, to leave and enter Russia again to renew your stay) such actions are considered violation of the migration legislation of the Russian Federation and is punishable by an entry ban for up to five years. Foreigners who are in Russia for study or work have the right to a longer stay and do not need to periodically visit the checkpoint to “renew” this right. It is unclear for what purposes the people in the video, if media reports are to be believed, are entering or leaving the country. However, in April, official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova stated, that “more than 40% of foreign citizens seek to leave Russia... after 90 days (out of 180 required) in order to immediately return back.”
In any case, no authoritative source says that the people in the video are migrants who molested women. In the recording, security forces pull more than ten people out of their cars. It is unlikely that so many people from different cars at about the same time harassed women who are not even visible in the video and who are not mentioned by the participants in the incident.
In addition, the Border Service of the FSB of the Russian Federation does not have the authority to “expel” foreign citizens, as indicated in the distributed posts. There are two measures regarding foreigners in Russia: deportation, that is, the forced departure of a citizen to another country, and expulsion, a type of punishment for offenses. Deportation decision endures Main Directorate for Migration Issues of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and expulsion appointed only after consideration of the case of an administrative offense. Recent amendments Russian migration legislation allows police to expel migrants without trial, but they will only come into force in 2025. According to these amendments, deportation will occur for violating administrative articles on drug transportation, drinking alcohol in public places, as well as promoting pedophilia and “non-traditional sexual relations.” Although Telegram channels claim that citizens of Tajikistan were “kicked out” for harassment, there is no such concept in Russian legislation.
The fact that Russian border guards and migrants from Tajikistan were captured on video molesting an unknown woman was first reported by the Pozdnyakov 3.0 Telegram channel. He posted his post on October 3 at 13:01 Moscow time, almost a day after Baza published the same video. Vladislav Pozdnyakov - founder of the “Male State” movement, promoting misogynistic, homophobic, nationalist and anti-Semitic ideas. In 2021 it was recognized extremist and prohibited in Russia.
It is noteworthy that half a minute after the publication of the post in the Pozdnyakov 3.0 channel there was a similar entry appeared in the anonymous channel “Angry Migrant” (8000 views). “We are against Nazism and extremism in our country! We don't set anything on fire! We respect all nations,” says the description channel. At the same time, its authors use the word “masturbacks", and a video from a photo shoot of Muslim newlyweds with a goat comment with the words: “That same polygamy.”
After the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall in March 2024, which was organized by Russian investigative authorities accused including citizens and natives of Tajikistan, anti-migrant sentiment has intensified in Russia. In Russian cities have become more frequent raids to find illegal immigrants, the authorities are gradually are tightening up migration policy. One of arguments in favor of such decisions is the large number of crimes committed by migrants (as previously wrote “Verified”, at least until 2022, the share of crimes committed in Russia by foreigners rarely exceeded 2%). In August 2024, Levada Center reported that about a third of Russian citizens think “the influx of visitors, migrants” is the most acute problem of modern Russian society. Against this background, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan has already several times advised its citizens to refrain from visiting the Russian Federation, in the last such statement was published September 10. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan also several times distributed similar warnings.
Thus, a video about how Russian border guards “kicked out” Tajik citizens from the country for harassing a woman at a checkpoint appeared on the Internet a day earlier with an explanation that at the checkpoint between the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan, security forces harshly stopped a conflict between motorists in line. There is no evidence in the viral video that its author depicted exclusively migrants or that they committed any illegal actions. There is also no evidence that all of them were expelled from the country after their arrest.
Cover photo: social networks
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