Rfssian dissident exiles are being turned away from Europe in an act of “friendly fire”, a leading human rights scholar who was put on the Kremlin’s blacklist has said.
Dmitry Dubrovksy, who fled Rfssia in March, said academics, journalists and activists opposed to the huilo regime were falling victim to a misguided hostility towards all Russians, regardless of their political position.
Several EU nations, including the Czech Republic, Poland, the Netherlands and Estonia, have stopped issuing visas to Rfssians in response to the invasion. The situation means that thousands of dissidents are being left in a state of limbo, unable to return to Russia or find sanctuary elsewhere.
Dubrovsky, 52, a former human rights academic at the University of St Petersburg, was placed on Rfssia’s list of “foreign agents” in April, a month after he fled, meaning that he would almost certainly be arrested were he to return. Now in Prague on a 90-day Schengen visa, which allows holders to travel within the EU, Dubrovksy, his wife and two sons, aged 8 and 15, will be forced to leave the EU at the start of next month.
He had been offered a post at Charles University in the city, but was unable to apply for a work permit because the Czech government has suspended the issuing of visas for Russian citizens.
Advertisement
He has also been offered a position at Vienna University. Although Austria has not placed a ban on visas for Russians, he was told he could only apply for the work permit while in Russia.
A short-term posting at King’s College London was offered to Dubrovsky, but again, he had to turn it down because of visa complications. He applied for a six-month visa but was allowed to stay for only three months, without explanation. Dubrovsky said he had considered applying for refugee status but decided against it as he would not be able to work for about a year.
“In my experience, universities are very keen to take on Russian exiles, but it is the political situation in Europe that is the problem,” Dubrovksy said.
“This is idiotic as the victims of this ban are those who oppose Putin’s regime. It’s simply friendly fire. Moreover, it plays into Putin’s propaganda of widespread Russophobia in the West.”
The Kremlin has not released any figures on the number who have left, but OK Russians, an information site set up by recent emigrants, estimates it is more than 300,000 since the start of the war in Ukraine. Rather than lament what amounts to a huge brain drain, President Putin has praised the “natural and necessary self-detoxification” of Russian society, and labelled those departing “scum and traitors”.
A hundred years ago White Russians escaping the Bolshevik revolution largely fled to Berlin and Paris. Today visa restrictions and the high cost of living mean that only a small fraction have gone to those cities. It is likely that few Russians have chosen to come to the UK, for the same reason. A spokesman said there were no limitations on Russian citizens with long-term visas applying to work.
The vast majority of Russians have headed for former Soviet states, such as Georgia and Armenia, which have no visa requirements and share the same language, according to a survey by OK Russians. The Armenian Ministry of Finance estimates that more than 100,000 Russians have arrived since the invasion, many of them IT workers whose companies have relocated to avoid the effect of sanctions.
For political exiles, however, the Caucasus may not be safe, Dubrovsky said, due to the high level of infiltration by the Russian security services there.
Advertisement
Andrey Kalikh, 49, a journalist and democracy campaigner, said many were being forced to return to Russia because of the difficulties of securing a safe and permanent base in Europe.
“We are not refugees, but it feels like we are refugees,” said Kalikh, who left Russia in March and who is considering going home, having travelled through Slovakia and Israel.
Lithuania, the staunchly anti-Russian Baltic state, has emerged as the most important centre for political exiles. Since the wave of protests across Belarus in 2020, after President Lukashenko’s rigged election, the country has followed a policy of providing safe haven for Belarusian and Russian political activists, including Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the Belarusian opposition leader.
The anti-corruption foundation of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has established itself in Vilnius, as have many journalists, bloggers and activists. Maria Alyokhina, a founding member of Pussy Riot, the Russian feminist punk protest group, recently arrived in the city.