Nationalist vigilantes searching for illegal migrants lead raid on Yekaterinburg street vendors

Members of Russian ultranationalist vigilante group Russkaya Obshchina joined forces with local police to carry out a raid on street vendors selling fruit and vegetables in Yekaterinburg on Thursday, local media outlet 66.ru reported.

The Interior Ministry directorate confirmed that the raid had been authorised and was intended to identify illegal migrants working in the city. The vigilantes detained 10 vendors in total, one of whom turned out to be in Russia illegally. The remaining nine were only found to have violated trade regulations.

However, while the vigilantes took the stall vendors away, their stands were left unattended, and passersby began stealing the unattended produce. When one woman was asked if she was going to pay for the produce she was taking she replied, “No, they are selling it illegally.”

A correspondent from 66.ru reported that the theft took place in plain view of police officers, who did nothing. When questioned about the legality of taking someone else’s property, the officer replied that it was “fine”. However, when the correspondent began recording, the officer said he hadn’t witnessed any theft.

During an Internal Ministry press conference, law enforcement denied allegations that thefts occurred in the presence of police officers, saying, “it is premature to discuss the results of the raid, as the situation is still ongoing.”

Yekaterinburg lawyer Sergey Kolosovsky said that the police officers should have secured the stalls before they detained the vendors, adding that cases could be filed against the passersby for theft and against the police officers for negligence.