This summer, a 28-year-old digital content marketer packed his belongings into suitcases and duct-taped boxes and left Russia, leaving behind family and friends without knowing when he might return.
“It is very sad to leave Russia,” he said in the southern city of Krasnodar before making his way toward the Georgian border.
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Russians flee across the Georgia border after Putin announces mobilization back in 2022
(Photo: Reuters)
He blamed “the political situation” in Russia and difficulties caused by authorities restricting internet access. Otherwise, “I never would have left for more than several months,” he told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
He is among a growing number of Russians who have left or are considering leaving amid Ukrainian drone attacks inside Russia and persistent rumors that the Kremlin could announce another mobilization for the 4 1/2-year-old war.
The attacks this summer triggered an unprecedented fuel crisis and dealt severe blows to Russia’s booming e-commerce sector. Since last year, the government has cited the attacks in justifying tighter restrictions on internet access.
The current exodus is nowhere near the scale of 2022, when hundreds of thousands fled during the first year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Still, Kovcheg, a group that helps Russians leave the country, said it received nearly eight times as many requests for assistance last month as it did 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.”
A Wildberries e-commerce warehouse burns after a Ukrainian drone strike
Russians weigh leaving
The current scale is difficult to measure. Unlike in 2022, when large numbers of men fled a partial military call-up, there are no long lines at border crossings or shortages of tickets to visa-free destinations including Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Turkey.
At the same time, AP found numerous social media videos from across Russia in which people said they had decided to leave for reasons connected to the war. Others cited the weakening economy, uncertainty about the future and shrinking freedoms.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other officials in Kyiv have said Russia is planning another mobilization after the State Duma election that concludes Sunday. The Kremlin has repeatedly and vehemently rejected those claims.
Yan Slovizki, a human rights activist and emergency assistance coordinator for Kovcheg, described “a panicked wave” of emigration since mid-July, tied to mobilization fears, the fuel crisis and internet restrictions.
A 28-year-old digital content marketer who recently moved out of Russia rides a subway car in Tbilisi, Georgia
(Photo: AP Photo/Zurab Tsertsvadze)
A Moscow-based diplomat told AP there had been “a palpable rise in public anxiety this summer,” pointing to “anecdotal evidence of higher than usual numbers of Russians appearing in neighboring Georgia and Armenia, possibly fearing another mobilization after the Duma elections.”
The diplomat was not authorized to speak publicly and commented on condition of anonymity.
Alen Simonyan, secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, told independent Russian television channel Dozhd last month that his country “will not interfere in any way, and if necessary, will help” Russians moving there to avoid being drafted.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry sharply rebuked the statement, calling Simonyan’s remark “provocative.”
Russian lawmaker Viktor Sobolev told RTVI that the country does not need people who “don’t love their Motherland so much that they leave because of rumors,” adding: “Let them leave.”
Fear of military service
The digital content marketer, who describes himself as a pacifist, said this was his second attempt to emigrate.
He left Russia in 2022 to avoid the partial call-up of 300,000 troops announced by President Vladimir Putin, a move that shocked the country.
Yan Slovizki of Kovcheg, which helps Russians fleeing the country; he says anxiety has surged since mid-July
(Photo: AP Photo/Anthony Pizzoferrato)
He said he is technically ineligible for military service in peacetime because of a hip condition, but nevertheless felt safer leaving because he did not know what to expect from the authorities.
The man returned to his hometown of Ulyanovsk in 2025 and worked remotely for clients overseas. But Russia’s continuing crackdown on thousands of internet platforms, websites and services increasingly interfered with his work, forcing him to repeatedly switch VPN servers to get around restrictions.
Rumors of another mobilization were another reason to go.
“You never know what will happen tomorrow,” he said from an apartment in Tbilisi, where he has settled.
A gathering of Russians who fled their country this month in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia
(Photo: AP Photo/Anthony Pizzoferrato)
A 23-year-old Moscow resident who left Russia last month also cited persistent mobilization rumors and concern that her husband could end up in the military.
The woman, who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity because of security concerns, said her father narrowly avoided being drafted in 2022 by fleeing the country. This year, her husband learned that he would no longer have a military deferment after completing his master’s degree.
A line at a Moscow gas station this summer as repeated attacks on oil facilities caused fuel shortages
(Photo: AP/Pavel Bednyakov)
“A person can figure anything out, but we were really afraid that (my husband) could end up in the army, because at this point it is a one-way ticket,” she said.
Ivan Nazarov, a recent university graduate who moved to Yerevan, described similar fears.
He said he knew of reports involving conscripts in mandatory service, who are not supposed to be deployed to Ukraine, being forced to sign contracts that send them to the battlefield.
“For me, it is a question of survival,” Nazarov said at a gathering in Yerevan organized by Kovcheg for recent Russian emigrants.
Shrinking freedoms
For other Russians, the decision to leave is driven less by mobilization fears than by the erosion of personal freedoms.
Queer activist Daniil Neonov left Russia this summer after a series of detentions and a 10-day jail sentence on charges of displaying extremist symbols over a photo he posted on social media showing a T-shirt with a rainbow-colored print.
Russian authorities have outlawed what they call “the international LGBT movement” as extremist, leading in some cases to misdemeanor charges over items displaying rainbow symbols.
Neonov told AP in Yerevan that he feared a criminal case could be opened against him.
He said he knew other people who left Russia after being detained for gathering outside the Supreme Court last month in support of the opposition Yabloko party, when the court struck it from the parliamentary election ballot. Yabloko was the only party on the ballot that openly opposed the war.
“The police came to them and filed reports. I know several people who, after they were held in detention, also left. I mean, I’m not the only one,” Neonov said.
A 35-year-old Russian told AP that he was preparing to leave because he did not want to live in a country without free speech, with an economy in decline and schools where children are exposed to propaganda glorifying war, normalizing violence and promoting isolation from the outside world.
The man, who also spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said he had been thinking about leaving for more than a decade but continued hoping 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.”