How many Russians left their country in the days or months following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022? 700,000? A million ? The estimate is hazardous, and some ended up returning to the country after the initial flight. It remains that the appearance of a new Russian diaspora, after several successive waves in the 20the century, is one of the major facts of the Ukrainian conflict, regarding the future of Russia, but also, to a lesser extent, that of Europe.
For the first time, a large-scale sociological survey is interested in this other Russia. This also has the merit of placing this emigration over a longer period of time, by comparing this last wave to those arriving in the 2000s, but also after 2014, the real start of the Ukrainian conflict.
Commissioned by the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) Center for Analysis and Strategies in Europe (CASE), the new think tank created by Russian researchers in exile, the study is based on a survey conducted by the University of Nicosia. Three thousand two hundred and thirty-seven people based in Germany, France, Poland and Cyprus were surveyed, online or face-to-face. The study, unveiled Tuesday June 11, is signed by two economists, Vladislav Inozemtsev and Dmitri Nekrasov, associated with former Duma deputy Dmitri Goudkov, all now in exile.
Mostly young and educated men
THE “relokanty” post-2022 (literally the “relocated”, the neologism which has become established in Russia to describe these exiles) represent 44% of the panel studied (compared to 35% for those who left between 2014 and 2022). Unsurprisingly, they are predominantly young, male, educated and held (or hold) skilled jobs.
The authors warn of excessive focus in recent years on opponents hunted by Vladimir Putin’s regime, who number only a handful – just four to five thousand people, according to their estimates. The mass of new exiles is rather made up of individuals who are not in immediate danger (except for those fleeing the threat of mobilization in the army), but whose lives, or future prospects, have been made impossible in an entire Russia given over to authoritarianism and its confrontation with the West.
Among the latest arrivals, 65% still cite the “Russian-Ukrainian conflict” as the reason for their departure from Russia, with 44% citing “other political reasons”33% economic motivations and 8% their sexual orientation (several answers were possible).
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