Facing rejections when renewing residence permits, difficulties with transferring work and money abroad, and limited destinations that still welcome them, Russians who fled the country in the earlier stage of the war, opting to end their self-exile.
"The business didn’t work out; no one is really waiting for us” abroad, said Alexey, a 50-year-old former political consultant from Moscow who moved to Georgia to work as an entrepreneur after being detained at an antiwar rally in the Russian capital. He returned when his business’ finances ran out, Alexey said.
The February 2022 invasion provoked a mass exodus from Russia on a scale not seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many left to register dissent against the war and out of fear of mobilization. When Putin ordered a call-up of 300,000 reservists in September 2022, it triggered a new wave of departures by hundreds of thousands of people.
That outflow has slowed, if not reversed. In June 2023, the Kremlin boasted that half of all who fled in those early days had already returned. Based on client data at one relocation firm, Finion in Moscow, an estimated 40 to 45 percent of those who left in 2022 have returned to Russia, said the company’s head, Vyacheslav Kartamyshev.
Russian President Vladimir Putin praised the return of business people, entrepreneurs and highly qualified specialists as a "good trend.” Thousands of returning expatriates are also helping Russia weather wartime sanctions and deliver a
solid economic performance.
Reverse migration has likely added between one-fifth and one-third to Russia’s 3.6% annual economic growth in 2023, according to Bloomberg Economics estimates.
For some, Russia now offers better opportunities and working conditions than before the war because the country is trying to attract back scarce specialists.
IT programmer Evgeniy and his family returned after about a year of living in Almaty, Kazakhstan, when he received an offer to work in Russia with a salary and under conditions that he "could not even dream of before.”
