Exit as Voice, for the Economically Mobile | Russian Migration Post-Invasion

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine triggered the immediate outmigration of its citizens, hundreds of thousands of whom fled to the Caucasus and Central Asia. Yet, extant theories of conflict-based migration offer limited insight into why so many Russians left suddenly in response to the war. Nor can they account for the reversal of flows of skilled labor migration, which had previously gone to the metropole. Drawing on in-depth interviews and focus groups with first-wave Russian emigres, we find that the domestic support for the invasion intensified opposition-minded Russians’ sense of political alienation, while legal repression motivated their immediate exit. However, the globalization of white-collar labor shaped who left. Finally, migration policy and a lower cost of living, in conjunction with other colonial legacies, shaped legal and economic mobility in ways that drew Russians to Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Margaret Hanson is a political economist and sociolegal scholar. Her research examines how law, politics and economics interact to shape state-society relations in former Soviet states, particularly autocracies. This includes projects focused on migration, democracy and citizenship, corruption, and economic governance. Her work has been published in Perspectives on Politics, the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Europe-Asia Studies, Law and Social Inquiry, and Problems of Post-Communism, and her book, Seeking a Corruption Equilibrium: Authoritarian Legality in Central Asia, is under review.