Russia has banned all foreigners from working as retailers in its shops and markets. Up to 20,000 non-Russians currently work in Moscow markets in a tradition going back to Soviet times. President Vladimir Putin said that the interests of Russian citizens were at stake. Migrant groups have condemned the law, passed after ethnic violence last year, as unfair. While foreigners will not be allowed to sell directly, they still have the right to work in markets as loaders, cleaners, wholesalers or managers, according to an official from the Russian Federal Migration Service, Vyacheslav Postavnin.