They fled after the start of the war. Now thousands of Russians are returning home and helping Putin

Russians abroad face frequent rejections of requests to extend their residence permits and difficulties in transferring money and work outside their country of residence. In addition, there are only a limited number of locations that continue to accept them. That’s why, according to Bloomberg, many are choosing to return to Russia, even though the war in Ukraine continues and President Vladimir Putin begins another six-year term.

“Business didn’t work out, nobody is really waiting for us abroad,” said 50-year-old Alexei, who previously worked as a political consultant in Moscow. After being detained at an anti-war rally, he moved to Georgia and went into business. He returned to Russia when his company ran out of funds.

The exodus of Russians triggered by the February 2022 invasion is the largest since the fall of the Soviet Union. Many left as a sign of opposition to the war or out of fear of mobilization. This is also confirmed by the fact that hundreds of thousands more people left Russia after Putin mobilized 300,000 reservists in September of the same year. However, this outflow has at least slowed down since then, and according to some estimates, the influx of returnees already exceeds it.

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Already in June last year, the Kremlin boasted that half of those who fled at the start of the war had already returned, according to available statistics from the most popular migration destinations and relocation companies. According to the data of the Moscow-based Finion, one of these companies, 40 to 50% of people returned to Russia, said the head of the company Vyacheslav Kartamyshev.

Putin called the return of entrepreneurs and highly qualified specialists a “good trend”. He sees their influx as a sign of support for his policies and proof that Russians have “a sense of where they belong and an understanding of what’s going on.” Russian propaganda also uses these returns as a confirmation of Western Russophobia, said Tatiana Stanovajová, founder of political consulting company R.Politik.

The return of thousands of emigrants is also helping Russia’s economic performance withstand sanctions. In 2023, the Russian economy will grow by 3.6%, and according to Bloomberg economists, returns are responsible for a fifth to a third of the growth. At the same time, returnees make up only approximately 0.3% of all employees, but they are usually the highest quality. The labor market also still faces acute shortages.

In an effort to lure back the necessary specialists, Russia is now offering many better opportunities and working conditions than before the start of the war. This is confirmed by the programmer Yevgeny, who returned with his family after about a year of living in Almaty, Kazakhstan. According to him, he was prompted to return by a job offer with a salary and conditions “that he could not even dream of before”.

After CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) announced that it would stop cooperating with Russian specialists this year, the president of the National Research Center of the Kurchatov Institute, Mikhail Kovalchuk, called it a “gift” because, according to him, it will lead to the return of scientists to Russia.

“First of all, returning migrants usually receive higher salaries and are employed in highly valued fields,” Bloomberg economist Alex Isakov explained the impact of the return of migrants on the Russian economy. “Surveys show a correlation between the amount of income and the likelihood of leaving the country in an attempt to avoid mobilization in 2022. Second, returners increase the activity of businesses oriented to domestic consumers, such as home services, retail or the real estate market. This also limited the flow of capital from Russia last year.”

According to economists at the Moscow-based Alfa Bank, Russia will lose 1.5% of its workforce in 2022, amounting to around 1.1 million people. Some went to Europe, but many chose states that did not join the anti-Russian sanctions, such as the United Arab Emirates, Thailand, Indonesia, or neighboring post-Soviet countries, as their destination for migration.

According to Kartamyshev, the majority of people who encountered rejection or problems with extending their residence permit abroad decided to return to Russia. At that point, Russians can choose between returning or a precarious attempt to settle in another country. According to Finion’s data, Russian emigrants also face similar obstacles in relatively friendly countries such as Armenia, Kyrgyzstan or Turkey.

The current number of short-term residence permits issued to Russians in Turkey is around 60,000. As late as 2022, this figure was 132 thousand, i.e. more than twice. In turn, Georgia’s National Statistics Office reported that 35,344 Russians left the country last year, a six-fold year-on-year increase, while the influx of migrants to the country decreased by 16%. Kazakhstan then announced that 146,000 Russians had come to the country by the end of 2022, but according to the Russian ambassador in Almaty, only 80,000 remain in the country a year later.

That process is likely to continue, according to Bloomberg. He states this based on the results of a study by political scientists Emil Kamalov and Iveta Sergeeva from the Institute of the European University in Florence, according to which only about 41% of Russian migrants consider their status to be stable. In some countries, this number reaches only 16%, and 25% of Russian migrants report experiences of discrimination either by the local population or institutions.

They discovered “that the world has literally united against them,” said Anna Kulešov, a sociologist from the Social Foresight Group who conducts interviews with Russian migrants. “They came back with a feeling of resentment and with the conviction that Putin was not so wrong after all. They really hate us,” she added.

This does not mean that the return home will be smooth for the Russians. This is especially true for those who left the country because of opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Among them is the thirty-five-year-old bank IT specialist Alexander, who returned with his family from Azerbaijan. He subsequently found a job in a large bank, where he is surrounded by supporters of Vladimir Putin who believe the war propaganda. “It is not safe to convince colleagues. I’m waiting for this nightmare to end,” he said.

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