Majority of Refugees from Russia Now in Europe are Chechens

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 22 – The majority of the 166,000 Russian citizens who have sought political asylum in Europe over the past decade are Chechens, followed by Daghestanis and Ingush, according to Svetlana Gannushkina, head of the Civic Support group and of the leadership of International Memorial.

            In addition, she says, there are many refugees from Russia because of falsified criminal cases, involvement with religious groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses the Putin regime continues to attack, and women from the North Caucasus who have been victimized by their husbands (doshdu.com/bolshinstvo-rossijskih-bezhencev-v-evrope-sostavili-zhiteli-chechni/).

            Almost a third of those seeking asylum have gone to Germany (54,000), 42,300 have gone to Poland and 32,700 thousand have gone to France. Other countries have much smaller numbers of asylum seekers from Russia, with Austria the next largest with only 6600 seeking asylum.

            Fewer than 10 percent of those who have applied – only 13,170 out of 166,600 applicants – have received the grants of asylum they seek.