By Murad Rakhimov | 2024-12-24

TASHKENT -- Russian authorities are searching for the "enemy" to blame for its failure in Ukraine and for stubborn inflation, bankruptcy risks and a growth slowdown.

One of the main targets are émigrés.

In 2022 alone, 1.3 million Russians fled the country, according to a UK Defence Ministry estimate. They either opposed the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine and/or feared being drafted into it.

Soviet roots

This bitter attitude towards émigrés not only stems from modern Russian propaganda but has deeper, Soviet roots, a Russian historian, ethnologist and anthropologist told Kontur on condition of anonymity.

"A very high level of aggression has formed in Russian society now. And it is connected with the search for any 'enemy' that can be found," the Russian scholar said. "It is Ukraine, America and the whole so-called 'West', migrants, non-Russians, gays, the opposition, émigrés... The list could go on."

Zealots are now looking for "improper" and "foreign" elements in Russian society, prompted by both targeted propaganda and persistent Soviet narratives: if you leave your homeland (for whatever reason), then you are an enemy and a traitor, he said.

This is how the USSR treated defectors -- ballet dancers and actors Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev, film director Andrei Tarkovsky, athletes, writers and, in general, everyone who relocated abroad.

"If you leave the country, you are an enemy, an 'improper' person, a bad person. This perspective has been ingrained in society even since Soviet times," said the scholar.

'You're welcome to get out'

"You're welcome to get out" was the headline of an article in which Kommersant said Russians themselves remain undecided about how to deal with émigrés.

In a telephone survey conducted in October 2023, 1,611 respondents weighed possible actions to bring Russian emigrants back to the country.

Survey participants replied to the question: "Over the past two years, a large number of skilled professionals have left Russia. Should the state take action to force them to return?"

Almost half of those surveyed said they support such actions: 39% said the authorities should "use positive incentives" (special programs and payments) to encourage emigrants to return, and 4% supported "negative" incentives, such as higher taxes or the threat of being unable to come to Russia in the future.

Twenty percent of respondents said that émigrés should be banned from returning home.

Support for a ban on the return of émigrés increased with the age of respondents: from 14% among respondents aged 18–29 to 25% among respondents aged 60 and older.

Meanwhile, with 46% responding favorably, university graduates formed the largest demographic group that supported measures to bring back émigrés.

This split did not surprise the survey's authors.

"The results largely confirmed our hypothesis: society does not have a unified position on this issue," media analyst Yulia Bobrova told Kommersant.

'Traitors' and 'Nazis'

On October 13, 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened Russians who had left the country, saying that their ability to return to Russia would depend on their behavior towards Russia while abroad.

Such rhetoric hardly seems ideal for encouraging the skilled, multilingual and upwardly mobile among the expats to consider coming back.

"If a person behaves amorally towards Russia, then of course he will feel it when he returns here. How could it be otherwise?" said Putin.

Those who leave Russia endure being taunted as traitors and Nazis.

Nikita, 21, arrived in Tashkent from Saratov on November 29 after fleeing a draft summons.

"I'm an undergraduate, and I fled the war draft," he told Kontur. "Now I'm a college dropout. I need help. I've spent two nights on the streets and haven't eaten anything in the same number of days. I'm willing to work for food and a modest place to sleep."

Convinced that the war in Ukraine is a crime, he does not want to participate in it.

"In Russia, we are treated in various ways but mostly as traitors. Some people even call expats 'Nazis.' Especially those who left because of the war draft," said Nikita.

Ethnic minorities targeted

Imran, who asked not to use his real name, is an ethnic Avar who fled his native Dagestan in May 2022, three months after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

"Even though I was 30, I could have been drafted because I'm a doctor and doctors are needed at the front," said Imran, now 32.

"What's more, we are considered ethnic minorities in Russia, and these are precisely the ones who get taken to military enlistment offices first," he said. "They don't feel sorry for us."

He is now living in an apartment in Yerevan, Armenia.

During the first year of the war, more than 100,000 other Russian citizens moved to Armenia.

At first, life was hard for Imran, and his relatives from Dagestan helped him. Local banks still accepted Russian cards at the time.

Now, he is improving his medical education. He wants to study to become a plastic surgeon, a profession he says is in demand in Armenia. He dreams of working at one of the many local clinics. And yet he misses home.

"I really want to return to Makhachkala, where I was born. But this will be impossible until the war in Ukraine ends and Putin's regime falls," said Imran.