More than 100 people have been arrested in the Kuzminki area of Moscow, after a mass brawl that saw two groups of mainly migrants beat each other up. Some reports have suggested the fight had been pre-planned online.
In videos published on social media, the fight can be seen to break out near a Metro station late on Monday night. Moscow news agency Interfax, citing a source, reported that the scrap mainly involved migrant workers from Central Asia.
According to TASS, a man warned the police in advance about the upcoming brawl, revealing that he was mistakenly added into a WhatsApp group, via which around 400 people had agreed to fight at 19:30 in Kuzminki.
After the fight, 103 migrants from Central Asia were detained, Interfax reported, citing the police.
A TASS source in the medical services told the agency that several of the participants suffered stab wounds.
Following press coverage, the Kyrgyz Embassy in Moscow called on its citizens in Russia to remain calm and to comply with local law, noting that the diplomatic mission would provide legal and consular assistance to the injured.
Also on rt.com More migrants, please! Covid-19 has caused fall in foreign workers coming to Russia, leaving country short of manpower – KremlinMoscow has a significant number of migrant workers from Central Asian countries such as Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The country’s economy relies somewhat on this cheaper labor from these former Soviet states, especially in the service and construction sectors. Earlier this year, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov revealed that restrictions to help stop the spread of Covid-19 had impacted the speed of Russia’s development, noting that there were not enough people to work on building sites.
“I can only state the reality that there have been very few migrants in our country over the past year, and we really, really lack these migrants for the implementation of ambitious plans,” he said.
In March, the Minister of Construction, Housing, and Utilities Irek Fayzullin revealed that Russia was short of 1.2 million builders.
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