Any anti-war, anti-Putin Russian’s that can leave the country?
Are packing their bags and fleeing to the West……
They are joined by those seeking to escape the dwindling economic situation in the country….
The Russian ‘purge’ gains speed with Putin’s War in the Ukarine adding fuel to it….
Those being pushed out joined an exodus of tens of thousands of Russians who have fled the country since the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, a flood of talented, highly educated Russians who have decided that they would prefer exile to living in an authoritarian state.
The exiles include many people not directly involved in politics — technology specialists, entrepreneurs, designers, actors and financiers — countless professionals either directly engaged with the global economy or who just wanted to feel connected to the wider world.
Tough economic sanctions and a sweeping withdrawal of Western firms from Russia are gradually strangling those opportunities.
“Russia is losing a lot of great people,” said Serob Khachatryan, 39, who had started a cryptocurrency business in Moscow right before the invasion and is now in Armenia, working with other IT professionals to find ways to both help Ukrainians and to undermine Mr. Putin. “It is going to end up being just the army with nuclear weapons and the oil and gas. That is what Putin wants. I think Russia needs more than that.”….
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The Kremlin has long encouraged its critics to leave, and Mr. Putin made his scorn for dissenters amply clear in March, saying in a nationally televised speech that he considered those who identified with Western values “scum and traitors.” He threatened to remove them from society, while his spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said the “cleansing” would happen spontaneously as disloyal people moved abroad.
The law on foreign agents linked the designation to receiving funds from outside Russia, but the term has historically been associated with spies and infiltrators. The most recent additions to the list of foreign agents have been heavily weighted toward journalists and gay rights activists. But the circle of people targeted in recent months has widened to include any stripe of critic….