Russians Face Ever More Obstacles to Going Abroad, Reducing Pressure on Moscow to Officially Block Emigration, Pankratova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 2 – After Putin began his expanded war in Ukraine, many assumed that he would restrict the ability of Russians to leave the country, despite a constitutional ban on such limits and Russians’ belief that the right to travel abroad and back has been one of the greatest boons resulting from the demise of the Soviet system.

            Such fears increased when many Russians fled abroad first in the spring and then at the time of mobilization beginning in September in the largest exodus of Russians since immediately after the Bolshevik revolution and Russian Civil War. And as the war in Ukraine has continued, pressure to close the borders supposedly has been building

            But the Kremlin leader has not yet closed the borders, Irina Pankratova of The Bell says, largely because he hasn’t had to. Instead, the actions of other countries and his own hybrid methods have limited Russian departures (thebell.io/izolyatsiya-bez-zakrytiya-granits-kak-rossiyane-lishilis-vozmozhnosti-ezdit-za-granitsu).

            In reaction to Putin’s war, Western governments have made it far more difficult for Russians to get entry visas; and sanctions against air travel to and from Russia means that prices to fly from Moscow to the West have gone up from 250 to almost 400 percent and travel time from three to four hours to eight to 24 because of the need to go through third countries.

            As a result, Pankratova says, Russian airlines carried only 12.1 million passengers on international flights the first nine months of this year compared to 42 million during the same period in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year.

            At the same time, Putin has adopted or exploited a variety of measures already in place to restrict the ability of Russians to leave the country. Some eight million now are blocked from leaving because of debt, and millions more are prevented from doing so because of their current or past places of employment (rosbalt.ru/russia/2023/01/01/1981551.html).

            Unless the war intensifies, the journalist suggests, Putin is likely to be able to rely on these two factors rather than have to declare the borders closed, something he likely want to avoid doing because such a step would not only infuriate many Russians but undercut his own narrative about the limited nature of combat in Ukraine.