MOSCOW. Feb 27 (Interfax) - Over 3 million foreigners from the CIS countries are in Russia illegally, Federal Migration Service Director Konstantin Romodanovsky said.
"According to the information contained in our system, 3.3 million foreigners who are now in the country have overstayed their time in Russia, which is three months. The majority of the violators (900,000 people) are citizens of Uzbekistan, over 500,000 are citizens of Ukraine, and 400,000 are citizens of Tajikistan," Romodanovsky told the Federal Migration Service collegium held in Moscow on Wednesday.
"We can assume that they are working illegally. As a rule, most of them live in large cities," he said.
"There are currently 10.2 million foreign citizens in Russia now, of which 23% (2.3 million people) are citizens of Uzbekistan, 13.3% (1.3 million people) are citizens of Ukraine, and 10.2% are citizens of Tajikistan," he said.
Of these people, 4.2 million have arrived in Russia for purposes unrelated to work and 1.5 million are working legally on work permits or patents, he said.