Socioeconomic frames of Russia's post-2022 migration to Kazakhstan: A four-language news comparison

This article examines how Kazakh-, Russian-, Turkish-, and English-language news media framed migration from Russia to Kazakhstan after the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Russia's September 2022 mobilization. A qualitative comparative framing analysis of 26 news texts published from September 2022 to February 2026 identifies five linked frames: urban economic pressure; entrepreneurial and labor opportunity; legal-economic incorporation; social stratification; and adaptation, settlement, or return. The analysis situates these representations within Kazakhstan's long border and dense political, economic, and linguistic ties with Russia, while distinguishing border entries from durable settlement. It finds that apparently neutral socioeconomic reporting can both register local resentment and depoliticize it: migrants become conditionally legitimate when represented as skilled, solvent, documented, and incorporable, yet disruptive when associated with housing inflation and unequal access. The study shows how multilingual news publics construct divergent hierarchies of burden, usefulness, and belonging around the same migration episode.