Around 3 million foreign nationals currently work in Russia illegally, the head of Russia's Federal Migration Service (FMS) said on Thursday.
Out of 9 million foreign nationals who are currently staying in the country, without regard to Crimea and Ukrainian refugees, “almost 2.9 million of them are in Russia beyond the period allowed,” Konstantin Romodanovsky said.
“Taking into account the reasons why these people of working age have come here and the timeframe of their stay, we can definitely say that they are working illegally,” he said.
Romodanovsky stressed that 45% of foreigners coming to Russia stay in Moscow, St. Petersburg, as well as the Moscow and Leningrad regions. In these regions, 70% of foreigners work legally and almost 30% of others violate the regime of stay in Russia.
Russia’s Federal Migration Service has banned entry to 1.1 million foreigners for violating the country’s legislation. Most of these foreigners come from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), including Uzbekistan (40%), Tajikistan (up to 20%), Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan.