State migration policy of the Russian Federation: features of external migration in the post-pandemic period

The purpose of this study is to determine the features of one of the most significant areas of Russian migration policy – external migration, in the context of the lifting of restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the statistical information published by the executive authorities, it was possible to analyze data on external migration for 2022 and 2023, which allows us to affirmatively speak not only about the recovery in the volume of external migration characteristic of the period 2018–2019, but also about the existing trends in the increase in external migrations, primarily from Central Asian states. Such trends are due to the high level of migration attractiveness of modern Russia, which is characterized by the peculiarities of the migration regime implemented within the framework of existing international agreements with the Central Asian states of the post-Soviet space, concluded back in the 1990s, but also by certain provisions of the national migration legislation, which forms a special level of migration preferences for citizens of such states. At the same time, the migration system of the Russian Federation has several levels of implementation of migration policy, which allows, with the effective use of existing legal mechanisms at the regional level, to ensure the solution of the tasks of managing migration processes, in order to prevent a number of migration risks of mass external migration, namely replacement migration of the local population, the formation of places of compact residence of foreigners, the development of diasporas, the criminalization of immigrant communities, as well as the creation of tension in the labor market.