Announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin last Wednesday (21), the partial mobilization of reservists for the Ukrainian War generated a kind of exodus of civilians eligible for military service.
Satellite images recorded last Sunday (25) show kilometer lines of Russians leaving the country, on Russian borders with Mongolia and Georgia.
The images were captured by Maxar, an American aerospace technology company, and indicate the movement of tens of thousands of people leaving Russia.
Neighboring countries have been registering, since last week, an increase in the entry of Russian citizens. Allied with Moscow, the government of Kazakhstan reported this Tuesday (27) the crossing of 98,000 Russians in the last six days.
The same is true in Georgia, which, according to the Ministry of the Interior, now receives 10,000 Russians a day – from 5,000 to 6,000 at the beginning of the war. The government, more aligned with the West in the current crisis, did not release official data prior to the invasion of Ukraine.
North Ossetian authorities, however, announced the creation of a military mobilization post to recruit reservists who attempt to evade. The territory is a Russian separatist enclave, separated from Georgia since the 2008 war.
The sharp influx in these countries can be attributed to the fact that Russian citizens do not need visas to cross the border.
The Kremlin did not anticipate such an accelerated diaspora, and the Russian Interior Ministry proposed, in response, to limit the length of stay in Kazakhstan without a passport to a maximum of three months – currently, all you need to do is present a Russian document to receive permission.
In addition to neighboring nations, the European Union (EU) is also witnessing an increase in the flow of Russians crossing its borders. In the week ended last Sunday (25), around 66,000 Russian citizens entered European bloc nations — a figure 30% higher than the previous week — according to data released by Frontex, the European border agency.
Most of the contingent immigrated on residence visas or dual citizenship, but the agency says it fears that if Moscow eventually decides to stop potential recruits from leaving the country, a surge in illegal immigration could occur.
On the 19th, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia closed their borders to Russian tourists. There are also fears that other nations, such as Finland – which has received 30,000 Russians in the last four days alone – may decide to adopt a similar measure in the face of high migration figures.
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