Chinese construction workers in Russia’s Far East have staged a second day of protests over unpaid wages, with Russian security forces restricting access to their residential compound near a major oil refinery.

According to Radio Svoboda on April 13, several dozen employees of the company Petro-Hehua gathered near the Komsomolsk-on-Amur oil refinery, where they had been working on a hydrocracking complex project linked to Rosneft.

Local authorities confirmed the demonstrations were aimed at drawing attention to salary arrears. Komsomolsk-on-Amur city head Dmitry Zaplutayev said the workers’ goal was to highlight the non-payment issue, while prosecutors announced an investigation into wage delays at one of the city’s enterprises.

The protests followed an earlier march on April 12, when more than one hundred Chinese workers walked through the city carrying signs in Chinese and Russian, appealing for assistance to Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin. After the march, participants reportedly sat along a central avenue before dispersing without detentions.

According to regional officials, the dispute stems from the termination of a contract between Rosneft and Petro-Hehua due to missed deadlines and alleged poor-quality work. Authorities stated that payments for completed and accepted work had been made on time, while responsibility for wage distribution lay with the contractor…