Russia faces largest exodus in 20 years as hundreds of thousands flee

Since February 2022, the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, nearly 700,000 residents have left Russia, reported the independent Russian portal Moscow Times. Around 100,000 Russians relocated to Armenia, 80,000 to Kazakhstan, and 74,000 to Georgia, the service conveyed. This wave of emigration is referred to as a "brain drain."

Approximately 80,000 residents of Russia moved to Israel, 48,000 to the USA, and 36,000 to Germany. The Netherlands received 16,000 Russians, Spain 16,000, Latvia 18,000, and Serbia 30,000. Currently, 28,000 more Russians hold residence permits in Turkey than before the invasion of Ukraine, although, as noted by the portal, renewing these documents has now become much more challenging.

Moscow Times, which presented these reports based on statistics from host countries, emphasized that it was unable to access all the data. Thailand and Indonesia did not provide data, Cyprus stated that it does not keep records of arrivals from Russia, and Portugal only published data for the previous year. Additionally, the collected information does not indicate how large the group of people is who obtained the right to reside in a given place but nevertheless decided to leave and possibly returned to their homeland.

Although relatively few people have left Russia (about 0.5% of the population), the current wave of emigration is the largest in 20 years, noted the portal The Bell, quoting demographer Salawat Abyłkalikow. In his opinion, this emigration "has the nature of a brain drain," because "people with very high levels of social capital, many young specialists" have left.

Russia is already experiencing labour market shortages, and it is expected that these will increase. The Ministry of Labour expects that by 2030, the country will lack 2.4 million workers, recalled the Moscow Times.