It’s Not a Gulag, Russia Says of Plan to Put Prisoners to Work
- Ministers weigh replacing lost migrant labor with convicts
- Labor shortages stoked by decline in migrants amid pandemic
This article is for subscribers only.
After Russian officials bemoaned the collapse of migrant labor in the coronavirus pandemic, the head of the country’s prison service offered a solution: reviving the Soviet-era practice of putting convicts to work. Just don’t call it a Gulag.
An association with one of the darkest chapters of the Communist past hasn’t deterred top bureaucrats, who’ve taken up the idea with enthusiasm. Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin recalled he once worked with prisoners at a brickmaking factory as he told an RBC news interviewer Friday that he’s in talks on using convicts at construction sites, a plan also endorsed by Industry Minister Denis Manturov.