War propaganda from both sides of the conflict in Ukraine includes overestimates of enemy casualties and friendly losses. Early reports that as many as 1,300 people were trapped or killed in the bombed Mariupol theater have been revised down to about 300 (still unconfirmed). Reports from Eastern Ukraine that Russia is forcibly relocating civilians to Russia may be inflated too, but are nonetheless unsettling (Associated Press):
While millions of Ukrainians have fled west, Ukraine accused Moscow of forcibly removing hundreds of thousands of civilians from shattered cities to Russia to pressure Kyiv to give up. Lyudmyla Denisova, Ukraine’s ombudsperson, said 402,000 people, including 84,000 children, had been taken against their will into Russia, where some may be used as “hostages” to pressure Kyiv to surrender.
The Kremlin gave nearly identical numbers for those who have been relocated, but said they were from predominantly Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine and wanted to go to Russia. Pro-Moscow separatists have been fighting for control for nearly eight years in those regions, where many people have supported close ties to Russia.
In former Russian and Soviet republics, fear of Russians knocking on your door “and putting you on a train for Siberia” is embedded in cultural memory. Moscow’s suggestion that relocation today is any more voluntary is doubtful.
NATO is pondering ways to apply even more pain to the Russian dictator prosecuting this war without triggering WWIII and spreading (and multiplying) the human suffering and destruction to alliance countries.
Catherine Rampell argues in the Washington Post that relocating Russians is one lever NATO still might press to put a hurtin’ on Putin.
“We’ve weakened its financial system. We’ve stopped buying Russian oil, caviar, vodka. We’ve vowed to find and seize Russian oligarchs’ yachts and apartments. But we haven’t, to date, gone after the country’s most precious resource: its people,” Rampell writes:
I don’t mean attacking the Russian people. I mean welcoming them here, particularly if they have significant economic and national security value to Russia.
We should start by expediting the most compelling humanitarian cases in the region. In Russia, these include dissidents and journalists risking their necks to challenge Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked war. But we should also actively court those who might be less political: the technical, creative, high-skilled workers upon whom Russia’s economic (and military) fortunes depend.
Already, Russian talent is rushing for the exits, in what might represent the seventh great wave of Russian emigration over the past century.
An estimated 50,000 to 70,000 IT specialists alone have recently left, according to a Russian technology trade group, which predicts another 100,000 might leave by the end of April. Others in the outbound stampede include entrepreneurs, researchers and artists. The pace of this brain drain is especially impressive given how difficult sanctions have made it to buy plane tickets or otherwise conduct transactions across borders, as well as how expensive travel has become. The Russian government hasn’t yet blocked emigration, but it is trying to slow the flow by interrogating those who leave or offering enticements to tech workers who stay.
Russians are fleeing for multiple reasons. Some object to their government’s actions. Many are likely motivated by the threats to their livelihoods and freedoms, resulting from both Western sanctions and Putin’s domestic crackdown. Day-to-day work has become more challenging, foreign-based tech firms have pulled out of the country, and basic websites have been blocked. Getting paid has also become difficult, thanks to sanctions affecting the financial system.
The rest is detail. Consider it a bio-economic weapon that while harming Putin might also benefit our own economy, Rampell suggests.
It might even work. Until Putin loads his brain trust onto trains headed east.
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