Even though the largest number of departures from Russia coincided with the initial stage of the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine (from February to November 2022), we believe it would be better to start in 2012 since soon after Putin’s return to the Kremlin, the drive towards building a solid dictatorship became noticeable to many politically active Russians. Starting from that time, even official Russian statistics recorded a sharp surge in the number of people leaving Russia permanently – from 117,000 in 2010 to more than 200,000 by 2014. The annexation of Crimea and the increased tensions between Russia and the West led to the continuation of the trend, so in total, around 2 million people left the country between 2012 and 2021. Together with the “grand exodus” of 2022, the figure could exceed 3 million, although comprehensive statistical data is not yet available.
A study commissioned by CASE in March 2024 clearly indicates that Russian diasporas in Europe, in their current form, have been formed since the start of Putin’s wars in Ukraine: they consist of those who left Russia up to 2013 inclusive, amounting to a mere 19%, while 79% of those surveyed belong to the subsequent waves, and the pace of the process accelerated (35% left in the period 2014 to 2021, and 44% after the start of full-scale war in February 2022) 6. It should also be noted here that, with the passage of time and the increasing spontaneity of departure, the gender composition of relocants changes dramatically: while in the times of “classical emigration,” it fully corresponded to the internal Russian proportions (53 women and 46% men), with the advent of “mass relocation” the ratio changed to 37% to 63%. Emigrants and relocants also differ significantly in age: before 2013, among those leaving, 56% were aged between 18 and 44 years, but after 2022 their share exceeded 83% 7 (for comparison, as of January 1st, 2022, the share of 18 to 44 year-olds in the overall population of the Russian Federation stood at only 29.7%). Such high intensity of departure coupled with the gender and age composition of relocants points to two important features of the current wave of exodus: on the one hand, a dynamic character; on the other, a certain choice of places of residence available for the relocants.
6 — Survey of Russian emigrants in European countries (Germany, France, Cyprus, Poland), op. cit.7 — Ibid.
All earlier emigration waves, we should note, appeared to be exclusively unidirectional and relatively short-lived. From the first emigration (1918-1922), no more than 4% of those who left returned to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and the lives of most of them ended tragically. Of the late Soviet and early Russian emigration, only a few subsequently resettled in their homeland, most of them being of advanced age and returning to live in Russia on pensions and annuities received from the countries in which they had worked in previous years. Moreover, in both cases, the Russian émigrés formed a relatively “hermetic” environment in their new host countries, maintaining weak ties with Russia or not practicing them at all. On the contrary, migrants of the last decade largely consider themselves an integral part of Russian society (which is confirmed, in particular, but not only, by election participation), maintain stable contacts with relatives and friends remaining in Russia, get a considerable share of information from Russian (specifically Russian, and not just “Russian-language”) media, and – something that could not even be thought about in previous episodes – rely heavily on income and other receipts from the Russian Federation (although this is not always recognized in surveys).
What also looks extremely important is the fact that the relocants of the last decade – even as they move to other countries without an intention to return and as some of them accept new passports – almost never renounce their Russian citizenship (this process, unlike emigration, is well documented and involves around 3-4,000 procedures annually). Moreover, the huge increase in the number of departures in 2022-2023 had little effect on the surrender of Russian passports: the number of such cases in 2022 turned out to be slightly less than in 2019 (4,306 versus 4,356), while for 2023 one may expect a 25-30% increase (4,400 Russians renounced their citizenship during the first nine months of last year). This confirms that spontaneous departures are considered by few people as irrevocable exits. Many current relocants (except those political asylum-seekers who fear possible prosecution) etain their Russian assets – and in many cases, people do not receive income from them but, on the contrary, maintain their apartments and pay all necessary taxes. Both circumstances indicate that most Russians do not consider the break with their homeland to be final; many still do not even admit the possibility that the authorities will apply arbitrary administrative procedures against them.
As a result, the current migration is not unidirectional. Along with the continuous outflow of people from Russia, there is also a process of return. Even sources that cannot be suspected of cooperation with the regime assess the share of relocants returning to Russia in 2022-2023 at 16-25%, excluding those Russians living abroad who return from time to time for various reasons and for different periods of time. The pro-Kremlin experts insist that up to 40 or 50% of relocants have already returned, and similar estimates are provided, for example, by Bloomberg, which recently reported that it was this backward migration that ensured high economic growth in Russia in 2023, allowing Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) to exceed its pre-war levels. In our view, the return continues – and the authorities are doing everything to ensure it will continue; after the “mobilization” shock of the fall of 2022, the Kremlin is afraid to announce another mobilization and is doing its best to build up not even a contract army, but a mercenary one. Despite growing concern in Russia about the ongoing redistribution of property, the latter still looks limited to confiscation from entrepreneurs who are disloyal to the authorities or decided to leave the country while still trying to manage their enterprises from abroad and is not believed to affect the larger number of relocants. Based on messages from colleagues and subscribers to our social networks, we would venture to say that the share of relocants returning varies significantly by country of temporary residence and may well reach half of the total number (including those who repeatedly return to Russia and leave again) in South-East Asia and many post-Soviet states, being somewhat lower in Turkey and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and falling to 10-15% and below in Western Europe or the US (the peculiarity of the American case is that, since February 2022, up to 50,000 Russians have entered the country illegally through the Mexican border and will not be able to travel internationally until their immigration cases are duly processed, which may take years, especially if the Republicans perform well in the upcoming November elections).
However, coping with the initial shock does not mean that Russians are no longer leaving the country. On the one hand, there is a prevailing anxiety in society due to the ongoing war and the tightening of internal repressions, which maintains the potential for a reversal of the trend. On the other hand, relatives of those who are establishing themselves abroad, who did not leave immediately with them, are now leaving the country, as are people aware of the growing obstacles to their professional activity in Russia, and members of new groups suffering from discrimination, the number of whom will only increase under Putin’s rule. One way or another, we consider the ongoing migration to be “systaltic” – sometimes expanding, sometimes contracting – and this, apparently, will remain its basic feature for years, distinguishing it from earlier phenomena of the kind. Russia, striving to confront the entire world, nevertheless maintains open migration ties with it, something that is inherent in our times to many other non-Western countries.
Therefore, we believe that “systaltic” Russian migration will remain one of the most important features of the socio-political landscape of the country at least until the early 2030s, unless some tectonic changes occur in the structures of state power. By that time, if the dynamics of migration retain their current mode, many of those who intend to return or live “in two houses” will implement this strategy, and those who really intend to emigrate will adjust their life strategies to new countries of residence.
In addition, it is worth noting that, compared to the emigration of the 1920s, 1970s and 1990s, the destinations that Russians are going to have greatly diversified. The “first wave” of emigration was almost entirely “European”: by 1922-1923, more than 80% of those who had fled settled in Western Europe – from Paris to Prague and from Berlin to Riga. Soon thereafter, the “transit bases” in Istanbul and Belgrade became almost empty, the Russian colonies in Dalian and Shanghai became less numerous, and no more than 5% of those who had left Russia settled either in the United States or in Latin American countries. At the same time, most of the emigrants rarely changed their chosen place of stay, being restrained by financial conditions. At the end of the 20th century, the main destinations for departure were Israel, Germany, and the US – and, to a much lesser extent, some countries of the European Union. In both cases, the main reasons for choosing the new country of residence (if we do not count the repatriation factor) were either the opportunity to earn money or the prospect of living on social welfare. In other words, the goal was either to increase or to secure one’s income. In modern conditions, such a goal seems at least secondary: many relocants either possess significant assets or can work remotely from any place in the world; therefore, minimizing current expenses becomes more important than maximizing income, which multiplies the options. Relocation in the last decade (and especially during wartime) has been very diversified in this regard: while just over a quarter of relocants settled in the EU and UK, about two-thirds of all those who fled the country in 2022 ended up in former Soviet republics, Turkey, Serbia and Montenegro, while 10 to 15% went to the UAE and countries of Southeast Asia: Thailand, Indonesia and even Vietnam and Cambodia.
However, we believe that it is precisely this diversity that emphasizes the difference between relocants and emigrants. The first is people leaving the country without a clear strategy for further action. This group can be divided into two categories. On the one hand, this is a continuation of the migration of the 2000s and 2010s, when it became popular among Russians to buy real estate abroad or to spend a large part of their time outside the country (primarily in, let’s say, resort locations). Given the recent uncertainty, such relocation has increased – primarily towards Southeast Asia, Turkey and the UAE. On the other hand, there are those who left in the panic of the first days of the war, without a serious intention to do so and in the hope of staying abroad for several months to around a year (the main destinations for this kind of departure were the former Soviet republics, Turkey and Montenegro). Among these people, there is no clear notion of their future plans; some want to move further to Europe or America, some are ready to integrate into local societies, and some intend to return (and are already returning) at the first opportunity. The second group consists of those who have firmly decided to leave Russia forever or until serious political changes in their homeland happen; these people almost never go to Asia and, to a small extent, to the UAE; if they stay in the countries of the former USSR, Turkey or Montenegro, they perceive these locations as temporary – as a springboard for moving to Europe. This difference seems to be extremely important since, if there is one way in which the Russian relocation of the 2020s resembles the emigration of the 1920s, it is in the fact that full integration is considered by our compatriots as a real option only in Europe (or, more broadly, in the West).
All these circumstances are important for analysis because it is clear that the Russians who left the country are relatively free to choose a place of relocation, and the EU countries became home to some of them not so much because of their own policy but due to developed custom: in the pre-war years, Russians liked to visit Europe; they purchased (and continue to acquire) real estate in EU member states; many of those now leaving share European values and the European way of life. Thus the influx of Russians to Europe continues. We believe that the Europeans should not try to prevent this influx; on the one hand, for purely economic reasons, since the relocants can become a serious driver of economic development (more on that below), and, on the other hand, because it would lead to Russians’ becoming disappointed with a “collective West” that fails to make a distinction between ordinary citizens who were not involved in Putin’s crimes and Russia’s regime itself.
We conclude this section by arguing that the current outward migration from Russia represents the largest exodus of highly qualified and entrepreneurial people sharing Western values and brought up in the European cultural tradition that has happened in the 21st century – and that this process should be taken seriously by the Europeans.