Russian emigration during the Russian invasion of Ukraine
In March, President Vladimir Putin introduced prison sentences of up to 15 years for publishing "fake news" about Russian military operations.
[10] Nina Belyayeva, a Communist Party deputy in the Voronezh Oblast Legislative Assembly, stated that she fled Russia due to threats of criminal prosecution and imprisonment for having spoken against the invasion, saying, "I realized that it was better to leave now.
Personally, I was wanted by the police in Russia for distributing anti-war petitions... We ran not from bullets, bombs and missiles, but from prison.
"[13] Bolshoi Ballet dancer Olga Smirnova left Russia to continue her career in the Netherlands in protest of the war.
[8] Among the Russians who left Russia after the invasion of Ukraine were pop musician Alla Pugacheva and comedian Maxim Galkin,[15] television journalist Alexander Nevzorov, diplomat Boris Bondarev, politician and economist Anatoly Chubais, businessman Oleg Tinkov, rapper Oxxxymiron,[16] activist Diana Isakova,[17] theater director Dmitry Krymov,[18] political activist Maxim Katz,[19] former paratrooper Pavel Filatyev,[20] political activist Lev Ponomaryov,[21] the rave band Little Big,[22] anti-war activist Grigory Sverdlin,[23] director Kirill Serebrennikov, rock musician Zemfira, actress Renata Litvinova, journalists Yury Dud and Andrei Loshak, novelist Lyudmila Ulitskaya, film critic Anton Dolin and literary critic Galina Yuzefovich.
[28][needs update] Following Putin's announcement of partial mobilization on 21 September 2022, a third wave of Russian emigration began,[29] with estimates of hundreds of thousands of male citizens fleeing.
[39] Putin signed a decree introducing prison terms of up to 15 years for wartime acts, including voluntary surrender and desertion during mobilization or war.
[59][60] Several EU countries, such as Latvia and the Czech Republic, have suspended granting visas to Russian citizens, complicating their exit from Russia.
[49] However, Finland, Poland and the Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia announced they will not offer refuge to Russians fleeing mobilization.
According to the Vote Abroad project, Putin won 3% in Serbia, 5% in Istanbul, Turkey, 6% in Argentina, 8% in Yerevan, Armenia, 9% in Kazakhstan, 10% in Thailand, 15% in Vietnam and 16% in Tel Aviv, Israel.
[67] Amnesty International noted that many Russian political emigrants, who entered the European Union on Schengen visas, become illegal immigrants after 90 days because they do not want to submit applications for asylum due to the impossibility of continuing their activities as journalists, human rights activists, etc.
In this regard, on 25 May 2022, Amnesty International encouraged the Cabinet of Germany to expand the programme of humanitarian admission (German: humanitäre Aufnahmeprogramme) on Russians persecuted by Putin's regime.
[71] Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, approximately 200,000 Russian citizens entered Georgia from Russia, of which 60,000 had remained in the country while others had crossed into Turkey and Armenia.
[78] Screenshots of alleged Russian users (from a large Telegram group of people crossing the Russo-Georgian border) complaining they were not allowed entry into Georgia because of Z signs on their cars went viral on the Georgian and Ukrainian internet.
[78] In October 2022, small-scale protests were held demanding the introduction of a visa regime with Russia, with the ruling Georgian Dream party dismissing such a step as "irrational".
[90] In September 2022, Kazakhstani president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev claimed that Kazakhstan would help fleeing Russians, saying that "most of them are forced to leave because of the current hopeless situation.
[94] In January 2023, Kazakhstan announced they were tightening visa rules, a move that is expected to make it more difficult for Russians to remain in the country.
Kyrgyz authorities did not explain the decision, but the real reason may be that post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan is heavily dependent on Russia and under the influence of the Russian government.
Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the State Duma, called the anti-war Russians in exile "scoundrels" and wanted the confiscation of their properties in Russia.
[106] On 23 March 2022, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Russians to emigrate from Russia so as not to finance the war in Ukraine with their taxes.
[109] While the United States has received Russian applications for asylum since the start of the invasion, it has warned against the increased trend of unauthorized entry: in one example, a maritime incursion by Russian nationals on a charter boat in Key West, Florida was initially characterized by the Department of Homeland Security as a "national security event", with the intercepted migrants subsequently scheduled to be deported.
[110] On 27 September 2022, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre encouraged Russian men fleeing their home country to avoid being drafted to apply for asylum in the United States.
Texas-based attorney Jennifer Scarborough said that "In March of 2022, the US said they were stopping deportations to Russia because of the political situation – so I don’t understand why they restarted it and they did it so quietly.
However, in 2024, German authorities ordered the deportation of Russian nationals who wanted to avoid mobilization and criticized Putin's government on the grounds that they would not face persecution in Russia.
