A 28-year-old digital content marketer who recently moved out of Russia rides a subway car in Tbilisi, Georgia, Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026. He asked not to be identified because of security concerns. (AP Photo/Zurab Tsertsvadze)
Article By Newser
‘It is very sad to leave Russia,’ says one, but many are packing up anyway
This summer, a 28-year-old digital content marketer packed up his suitcases and duct-taped boxes and fled Russia, leaving behind his family and friends and not knowing when he’ll be able to return. “It is very sad to leave Russia,” he said in the southern city of Krasnodar before heading for the border with Georgia.
He blamed “the political situation” in Russia and complications over authorities restricting internet access as his reasons for leaving. Otherwise, “I never would have left for more than several months,” he told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity. He is one of a number of people who either left or are contemplating a move amid recent Ukrainian drone attacks inside Russia and persistent rumors of a coming mobilization of troops for the 4 1/2-year-old war.
The attacks this summer caused an unprecedented fuel crisis and dealt crippling blows to the booming e-commerce sector. Since last year, the government has cited the attacks to justify harsh restrictions on connecting to the internet. The exodus is nowhere near as large as in 2022, when hundreds of thousands fled in the first year of the full-scale invasion.
Still, a group that helps citizens who flee abroad said it received nearly eight times more queries last month than it had in May. “It doesn’t mean that there is a huge number of people right now at the borders,” said Anastasia Burakova, the founder of Kovcheg, which means “ark” in Russian. “But we’re seeing that people are preparing to emigrate, we’re seeing that people are looking into what options are there.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other officials in Kyiv have said Russia is planning another military call-up after the State Duma election that concludes Sunday—claims the Kremlin has repeatedly rejected.
A Moscow-based diplomat described “a palpable rise in public anxiety this summer,” and pointed to “anecdotal evidence of higher than usual numbers of Russians appearing in neighboring Georgia and Armenia, possibly fearing another mobilization after the Duma elections.” Russian lawmaker Viktor Sobolev told RTVI that the country doesn’t need people who “don’t love their Motherland so much that they leave because of rumors,” adding: “Let them leave.”
A 35-year-old Russian told the AP he was preparing to leave the country because he doesn’t want to live in a land without free speech, where the economy is on a downward spiral, and where schoolchildren have to listen to war propaganda that normalizes violence and promotes isolation from the rest of the world.
The man, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said he had been thinking about leaving Russia for over a decade but still had hope that “everything would work out.” Now, he said, Russians “live in a huge digital jail. You can’t say anything, you can’t do anything. You have absolutely no rights.”
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