Iruni Kalupahana JadeTimes Staff
I. Kalupahana is a Jadetimes news reporter covering Russia-Ukraine war
In September 2022, a young IT worker from Moscow, Arseny, left Russia on the very day when President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilisation. His mother phoned him at noon warning him about the situation. With news of long queues at the border and people selling their cars in panic, he quickly flew to Yerevan.
Following the full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, millions fled Russia. According to various estimates, perhaps as many as two million, suggests human rights lawyer Anastasia Burakova though exact statistics are difficult to determine finding their lives abroad severely challenged from language to unemployment, many headed back home.
Arseny was among them, and he came back in December 2023 after more than a year abroad. Burakova's organisation, Kovcheg the Ark, helps Russian emigres with legal consultations, psychological help, and accommodation. She said that almost a million Russians remained abroad.
Emigration proceeded in two large waves: the first immediately after the outbreak of the war, when politically active people were afraid of persecution, and the second one after the announcement of mobilization, which included mostly apolitical people. Some have managed to settle abroad, but many cannot adapt and return to their native spaces in Russia.
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