{"id":275212,"date":"2025-04-06T04:33:05","date_gmt":"2025-04-06T04:33:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/06\/for-many-russian-exiles-even-a-peace-deal-might-not-mean-a-ticket-home\/"},"modified":"2025-04-06T04:33:06","modified_gmt":"2025-04-06T04:33:06","slug":"for-many-russian-exiles-even-a-peace-deal-might-not-mean-a-ticket-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/06\/for-many-russian-exiles-even-a-peace-deal-might-not-mean-a-ticket-home\/","title":{"rendered":"For Many Russian Exiles, Even a Peace Deal Might Not Mean a Ticket Home"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/06\/multimedia\/06int-russians-abroad-01-bmvf\/06int-russians-abroad-01-bmvf-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"For Many Russian Exiles, Even a Peace Deal Might Not Mean a Ticket Home\" title=\"For Many Russian Exiles, Even a Peace Deal Might Not Mean a Ticket Home\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">President Trump has said <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/27\/us\/politics\/starmer-ukraine-trump.html\" title=\"\">he trusts<\/a> President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to abide by any peace deal on Ukraine they negotiate. Many Russians who fled the country in the early months of the war are not so sure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Nor do they have much faith that the conditions that drove them abroad \u2014 including a crackdown on any political dissent \u2014 will change anytime soon, whether Mr. Trump manages to broker a cease-fire or not. For the moment, those talks appear to have stalled since Mr. Putin <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/31\/world\/europe\/putin-trump-russia-ukraine.html\" title=\"\">rebuffed a proposal by Mr. Trump and Ukraine for a 30-day<\/a> truce.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe war will be over when Putin is over,\u201d said Pavel Snop, a real-estate agent from St. Petersburg who fled to Turkey three years ago. He added, \u201cPutin is going to keep bargaining: But he\u2019s bargaining not for his country and its citizens, but for sanctions relief for himself and his friends.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For the Kremlin, the future of <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/re-russia.net\/en\/review\/347\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">some 800,000 Russians<\/a> who fled their country after the invasion is a sensitive political and economic subject. Their existence is a stark reminder that many Russians opposed the war, or at least did not want to fight in it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/03\/13\/world\/europe\/russia-exiles-putin-ukraine-war.html\" title=\"\">exodus<\/a> of so many people, who tend to be highly educated and work in professional fields that are in high demand, has also been damaging for the economy, experts say. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But even if they are homesick and struggling to put down roots elsewhere, many Russians abroad do not believe that the Kremlin will stop persecuting people for their anti-government stance no matter what happens on the battlefield in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A survey conducted by the research project OutRush that <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/outrush.io\/report_march_2025_eng\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">surveyed some 8,500 Russian \u00e9migr\u00e9s<\/a> in more than 100 countries from July to November, before cease-fire talks began, showed that only a small share planned to move back to Russia if the war ended.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While the survey is not representative of all Russian \u00e9migr\u00e9s, it showed that about 40 percent of poll respondents said they would consider returning if they saw democratic changes in Russia. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cRight now, trust in the Russian government is extremely low,\u201d said Emil Kamalov, who is part of the OutRush team, based in Italy and in the United States, that has studied the Russian exodus.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On a recent Friday in Istanbul, \u00e9migr\u00e9s from Russia, predominantly in their 30s and 40s, mingled with glasses of sparkling wine and kombucha at the opening of an exhibition at Black Mustache, a bookstore opened by a Russian exile in 2022. They shared stories of the bureaucratic complications of getting a residence permit in Turkey, of the difficulty of finding an apartment in Berlin and of hunts for work <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/10\/05\/world\/asia\/russians-fleeing-draft-kyrgyzstan-putin.html\" title=\"\">in their new countries<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But many have friends or family still in Ukraine, and say their own ordeals pale in comparison to what they have gone through: loss of life, large-scale destruction and Russian occupation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mikhail, 37, who said he works in entertainment, described the wrenching experience of uprooting his wife and young daughter from Moscow in March 2022, soon after the full-scale Russian invasion started. He asked that his surname not be used, fearing retribution against his wife who, unlike him, occasionally visits Russia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Now settled in Istanbul, Mikhail says he would like to at least visit Moscow without fear of being grabbed off the street and drafted to fight in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After a first wave right after the invasion of Ukraine, the exodus of Russians, particularly of young men of fighting age, intensified in the fall of 2022 when Mr. Putin announced <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/live\/2022\/09\/21\/world\/russia-ukraine-war-putin\" title=\"\">a partial mobilization<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some went back after the Kremlin stopped issuing call-up orders for civilians, but the mobilization decree is still technically in place. That means the government can force any Russian civilians of military age into service.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cMoving back is not even on the agenda for us right now,\u201d Mikhail said. \u201cRussia would need to at least officially end the mobilization so that I and others feel we are no longer in danger.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He said he saw \u201cno concrete steps\u201d by the Kremlin that would make him change his mind about the direction in which Mr. Putin was taking his country.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Russian officials have made no public indication that they plan to ease things on the home front.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Vyacheslav V. Volodin, speaker in the Russian Parliament, recently doubled down on threats against Russian \u00e9migr\u00e9s, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/tass.ru\/politika\/23108453\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">saying that those who left<\/a> should \u201ccome and repent on Red Square.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Other lawmakers have been drafting laws to go after Russians involved with \u201chostile\u201d <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/tass.ru\/politika\/23464067\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">foreign organizations<\/a> \u2014 or who have merely spoken out against the war.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Within two weeks of attending antiwar protests in St. Petersburg in 2022, and after being arrested and fined, Mr. Snop, the real-estate agent, booked a one-way ticket to Istanbul and said goodbye to his parents.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That decision proved to be prescient: Six months into the war, and after he had left, Mr. Snop was issued a summons by the military. When his father died in 2023, he could not go to the funeral, fearing arrest over the draft-dodging and his antiwar activism.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After three years of burning through his savings and grappling with the ups and downs of exile, Mr. Snop set up a business in Istanbul last summer with a local partner advising on real-estate deals for fellow Russians.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The idea of going back to his old job in his beloved city of St. Petersburg is tempting, he said, but he does not want to return to a country he sees as increasingly authoritarian.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He added that some Russians now take precautions when returning home, including purging their social media accounts, to avoid trouble with the authorities. His dream is \u201cto be able to come to my favorite city freely, without deleting Telegram, speaking loudly and freely on the bus and at cafes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Konstantin Sonin, an economics professor at Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, said that the departure of so many younger people could cause profound damage to Russia\u2019s long-term economic development.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe brain drain is a major blow to the economy, and the young, most talented and promising ones were the first to get offers and leave,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/outrush.io\/report_march_2025_eng\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">OutRush poll<\/a> showed that 80 percent of Russian <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/outrush.io\/report_march_2025_eng\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">\u00e9migr\u00e9s<\/a> have a university degree, compared with the average in Russia of 54 percent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some sectors of the economy were hit particularly hard, like information technology and higher education, Professor Sonin said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In some host countries, the influx of well-educated Russians with high purchasing power has helped spur an economic boom: In Armenia, the economy in 2022 grew by 14 percent, with economists partly crediting the Russian \u00e9migr\u00e9s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-9\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Clearly disturbed by the flight of thousands of young I.T. professionals, some Russian officials in the initial months of the full-scale invasion <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kommersant.ru\/doc\/6015520\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">tried luring them back<\/a> with preferential mortgage rates and deferrals from military service.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But the Kremlin has since largely given up such efforts. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Oleg Chernousov is among those who said he was unlikely to return anytime soon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-10\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He arrived in Istanbul in March 2022 with no Turkish and few savings, before setting up the Black Mustache store, where he hosted the recent exhibition by an artist friend from St. Petersburg alongside a large selection of English-language books.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Chernousov said that, whatever the outcome of cease-fire talks, the main concern of the \u00e9migr\u00e9s he knows was the erosion of freedoms in Russia. And he does not think closer relations between Washington and Moscow will reverse that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI don\u2019t think Trump cares about what is happening inside Russia \u2014 democratic change in Russia definitely does not depend on that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/06\/world\/europe\/russian-exiles-return-putin-war-ceasefire.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Trump has said he trusts President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to abide by any peace deal on Ukraine they negotiate. Many Russians who fled the country in the early months of the war are not so sure. Nor do they have much faith that the conditions that drove them abroad \u2014 including a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":275213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/06\/multimedia\/06int-russians-abroad-01-bmvf\/06int-russians-abroad-01-bmvf-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2294,163575,76691,148,3096,201842,3166,209,202,1461,3964,52,15556,128440,7058],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275212"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275212"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275214,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275212\/revisions\/275214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}