Even Jailors and Senior Investigators are Fleeing Russia in Droves, Romanova Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 28 – Perhaps the most surprising group of people to be leaving the Russian Federation over Putin’s war in Ukraine are his jailors and senior investigators, precisely the people who could be expected to enthusiastically back the Kremlin dictator’s policies and approach.

            But according to Olga Romanova, founder of the prisoner rights organization Sitting Russia, the trickle of such departures before 2022 has now turned into “a flood” with many of these supposed bulwarks of the Putin regime choosing to vote with their feet and leave the country (pointmedia.io/story/6929a586e657f59b666dce76).

            Not surprisingly, there are no official statistics on the number of such departures; and Romanova doesn’t provide any unofficial ones. But the anecdotal evidence she does provide suggests that the trend she points to is real, if seldom commented upon, and may create problems for the Kremlin both at home and abroad.

            At home, Moscow may find it hard to recruit replacements for such people; and abroad, Russia may discover that former jailors and investigators will be a key source to document the Putin regime’s war crimes and crimes against humanity as well as the broader category of victims of the Kremlin’s repression.