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Over the weekend, a migrant-owned business was burnt down in the city of Blagoveshchensk in Russia's Far East, while several migrants were beaten up in Kaluga, a city south west of Moscow.

A newly-built bridge into Blagoveshchensk from Heihe was celebrated as the symbol of a new era in cross-border trade yet you can observe it for an hour and not see a single vehicle driving in either direction.

Local tourists come here to peek into neighbouring Blagoveshchensk, just across the river, but there are not many of them.

The five received terms of between six years and three months to six and a half years in the city of Blagoveshchensk, it said in a statement, noting the FSB security service had begin probing the local chapter in 2017.

Last week, China and Russia opened a bridge linking Heihe, a border city in northeast China, to the Russian city of Blagoveshchensk.