A Russian youth group plans to offer volunteer patrols for the region surrounding Moscow to help police fight crime and spot illegal migrants, its leaders said Thursday, the Associated Press reports.The action by the group Mestnye, or Locals, comes amid government efforts to tighten restrictions on migrants and bar them from trading at markets — moves strongly opposed by rights activists.

“We will use all legal means available to oppose the influx of illegal migrants to the Moscow region,” the group said in its manifesto. “The uncontrolled and excessive flow of immigrants results in them taking those segments of the labor market which could be filled by the indigenous population.”

Last Sunday, several hundred Mestnye activists raided 20 markets in Moscow suburbs, searching for illegal immigrants working as traders. Police briefly detained several dozen people after scuffles broke out between the group’s activists and traders.

Mestnye leader Sergei Fateyev said the group’s goal was “to give priority to our local farmers,” alleging that migrants control markets in the capital’s suburbs and natives were being crowded out.

Fateyev said the group was acting independently and not heeding directions from President Vladimir Putin’s Cabinet, which issued a directive barring migrants from retail trade outside stores, starting April 1.

Critics warned that the move would only raise consumer prices and fuel growing xenophobia in Russia.

Indoor and outdoor markets selling food and consumer products are staffed heavily by migrants from other former Soviet republics, many of them working without official permission to reside or work in Russia — and working long hours for pitifully low salaries.

Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a veteran rights activist who heads the Moscow Helsinki Group, described both the government ban prohibiting migrants from working as market traders and Mestnye’s action as “idiocy.”

“It’s a disgusting throwback to the Middle Ages,” she told The Associated Press. “Are local farmers also going to produce kiwi, grapes and oranges that don’t grow here?”

Russia has seen a marked rise in xenophobia and attacks driven by ethnic bias in recent years, and rights groups accused authorities of doing little or nothing to combat hate crimes.

Fateyev insisted that his group wants to combat xenophobia and bias against migrants, but said Mestnye also wants immigrants and representatives of Russia’s numerous ethnic groups living in the Moscow region to end their “boorish behavior” and to respect Russian traditions and culture.

He said Mestnye would launch vigilante patrols in Moscow suburbs in coordination with police.

“We want native residents of the Moscow region to feel themselves masters of their own land,” said activist Alexander Kazakov. He said Mestnye was planning a rally next month to push for constitutional amendments that would emphasize the dominant role of the Russian language and culture.

Alexei Makarkin, an analyst with the Center for Political Technologies, an independent think tank, said the Kremlin apparently backed Mestnye to create an alternative to the Movement Against Illegal Immigration, a far-right nationalist group.

But he said the move could misfire and swell the ranks of extreme nationalists.

“It’s a very dangerous game: People participating in a moderate group would eventually want something hotter and join the radicals,” Makarkin told the AP.

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