Lewis, Alexandra; (2023) The Ru.Lag: the Kremlin’s New Empire of Forced Labor. Modern Slavery , 8 (1)

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Abstract

In 2022, Russia reinvaded Ukraine, scaling up a military conflict that began in 2014 with its sudden annexation of Crimea. With the invasion came the establishment of filtration camps, to divide up captured Ukrainians into civilian and combatant groups, for deportation, imprisonment or release. At time of writing, over one million Ukrainians and at least 240,000 children have been confirmed to have been sent to Russia, but the actual numbers are estimated to be far higher. These Ukrainians are caught in a two-way human pipeline that has also led to the conscription of Russians, mainly from ethnic minority or rural areas, to fight and die in the war. We argue that the Kremlin’s war has given rise to a new form of governance characterized by a set of laws, policies, and practices that can be introduced at will through presidential decrees, and marshalled to create a state-wide system of oppression – a Ru.Lag, weaponizing transportation, deportation and forced labor. The Kremlin’s war machine depends on state direction, not only of the military-related industries but also of legislative and judicial institutions. The Ru.Lag reaches all present on Russian-controlled territories, regardless of their nationality, and through its utilitarian commodification of human bodies and disregard for individual autonomy evokes the Soviet Gulag of old.

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