Authors

Discussion

Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and mass military mobilization in September of the same year, Russia has faced an unprecedented exodus of the population of its contemporary history. Not only it is extraordinary in its size, but also in its composition – it is predominantly made up of people with an experience of anti-authoritarian political participation back at home in the previous years. In terms of class, those people tend to be better off than an average Russian – they are more educated, working in IT, office “white collar” jobs, education, and culture. Practically, those can be categorized as the empowering group in terms of the theory of social movements. Additionally, they demonstrate higher levels of trust and general openness. Russian diaspora – compatriots – has been a highly politicized group within the structure of Putin’s regime and has been widely used as a symbolic tool of protection of the “Russian World”. However, post-2022 migrants are symbolically denounced by the state, and they themselves define themselves first and foremost through anti-war and anti-Putin standpoints. For those reasons, I see a strong political potential in these migrant communities. However, I argue that having experienced political engagement in an authoritarian setting, the past challenges of lack of agenda, representation, and self-identification remain unresolved. To untangle those contradictions, I analyze the interviews with Russian migrants collected as a part of the OutRush project. I focus on their narratives around identification, integration, belonging, their ties to their home country, and further life strategies.