Peace in Ukraine will not mean a return home, the emigrated Russians say

President Trump said Trusts President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to respect any peace agreement in Ukraine they negotiate. Many Russians who fled the country in the first months of the war are not so sure.

Nor do they have a lot of confidence that the conditions that have pushed them abroad-disclosures a repression of any political-cambies will soon soon, whether Trump manages to broke or not to cease. For the moment, those talks seem to have blocked by Mr. Putin Rejected a proposal by Mr. Trump and Ukraine for 30 days respite.

“The war will end when Putin will end,” said Pavel Snop, a real estate agent from St. Petersburg who fled to Türkiye three years ago. He added: “Putin will continue to contract: but he is contracted not for his country and his citizens, but for sanctions for himself and his friends”.

For the Kremlin, the future of About 800,000 Russians Which has escaped from their country after the invasion is a delicate political and economic topic. Their existence is a clear reminder that many Russians have opposed the war, or at least they did not want to fight in it.

THE Exodus Of so many people, who tend to be highly educated and work in professional sectors that are in great demand, have also damaged the economy, experience experts.

But even if they have nostalgia at home and struggle to take root elsewhere, many Russians abroad do not believe that the Kremlin will stop persecuting people for their anti -government position, whatever happens on the battlefield in Ukraine.

A survey conducted by the research project has passed Interviewed about 8,500 Russian emigrants In more than 100 countries from July to November, before the interviews of ceased the fire began, he showed that only a small fee planned to return to Russia if the war ended.

Although the survey is not representative of all Russian emigrants, he showed that about 40 percent of the survey interviewees said he took into consideration the return if they had seen democratic changes in Russia.

“At this moment, trust in the Russian government is extremely low,” said Emil Kamalov, who is part of the old -age team, based in Italy and the United States, who studied the Russian exodus.

A recent Friday in Istanbul, emigrated from Russia, mainly between 30 and the 1940s, mixed with glasses of sparkling wine and Kombucha at the inauguration of an exhibition at Black Bustche, a bookstore opened by a Russian exile in 2022 In their new countries.

But many have friends or family still in Ukraine and say that their palpal tests compared to what they have gone through: loss of life, large -scale destruction and Russian occupation.

Mikhail, 37 years old, who claimed to work in entertainment, described the excruciating experience of eradicating his wife and daughter from Moscow in March 2022, immediately after the start of the Russian invasion on a large scale. He asked that his surname was not used, fearing the punishment against his wife who, unlike him, from time to time visit Russia.

Now he settled in Istanbul, Mikhail claims that he would like to visit Moscow without fear of being taken from the street and enlisted to fight in Ukraine.

After a first wave immediately after the invasion of Ukraine, the exodus of the Russians, in particular of the young people of the fight, intensified in the autumn of 2022 when Mr. Putin announced A partial mobilization.

Some are back after the Kremlin stopped issuing calls for civilians, but the mobilization decree is still technically underway. This means that the government can force all the Russian civilians of the military era into service.

“The return back is not even on the agenda for us right now,” Mikhail said. “Russia would need to make an end to mobilization official so that others and I feel that we are no longer in danger.”

He said he saw no “concrete passages” of the Kremlin who would have made him change his mind about the direction in which Mr. Putin was taking his country.

Russian officials have not made any public indication that intend to relieve things on the internal front.

Vyacheslav V. Volodin, president of the Russian Parliament, recently doubled threats against Russian emigrants, saying that those who have gone It should “come and regret the red square”.

Other legislators have drawn up the laws to chase the Russians involved with “hostiles” foreign organizations – or who simply spoke against the war.

Within two weeks from participation in protests against the war in St. Petersburg in 2022, and after being arrested and fined, Mr. Snop, the real estate agent, booked a one -way ticket for Istanbul and greeted his parents.

This decision proved to be prescient: six months after the war, and after he left, Mr. Snop was issued a call from the military. When his father died in 2023, he could not go to the funeral, fearing the arrest on the cut and his activism against war.

After three years of burning through his savings and sockets with the ups and downs of exile, Mr. Snop organized an activity in Istanbul last summer with a local partner who recommends real estate agreements for Russian companions.

The idea of ​​returning to his old work in his beloved city of St. Petersburg is tempting, he said, but does not want to return to a country that sees more and more authoritarian.

He added that some Russians now take precautions when they return home, including the purge of their accounts on social media, to avoid problems with the authorities. His dream is “to be able to come to my favorite city freely, without deleting the telegram, speak aloud and freely on the bus and coffee”.

Konstantin Sonin, professor of economics at the Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, said that the departure of so many young people could cause deep damage to Long -term economic development of Russia.

“Cervelli’s escape is a serious blow for the economy and young people, more talented and promising were the first to get offers and leave,” he said.

THE Output survey showed that 80 % of the Russian emigrants have a university diploma, compared to the average in Russia 54 percent.

Some sectors of the economy have been affected particularly hard, such as information technology and higher education, said Professor Sonin.

In some host countries, the influx of well -educated Russians with a high purchasing power has contributed to stimulating an economic boom: in Armenia, the economy in 2022 grew by 14 percent, with the economists in part who have accredited the Russian emigrants.

Clearly disturbed by the flight of thousands of young IT professionals, some Russian officials in the first months of vast scale invasion I tried to attract them back With preferential mortgage rates and differences from military service.

But since then the Kremlin has largely given up on such efforts.

Oleg Chernousov is among those who said it was unlikely to return soon.

He arrived in Istanbul in March 2022 without Turks and few savings, before creating the Black Bustache Store, where he hosted the recent exhibition of a friend of St. Petersburg artist together with a wide selection of books in English.

Mr. Chernousov said that whatever the result of the interviews of ceased fire, the main concern of the emigrants who know was the erosion of freedoms in Russia. And he doesn’t think that the closest relationships between Washington and Moscow will revers him.

“I don’t think Trump worries what is happening in Russia – democratic change in Russia certainly does not depend on this,” he said.