Russian exile Roman Mikhailov sat on a windswept terrace of a tiny bar in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi and said he had no choice but to leave his country “immediately” when Moscow invaded Ukraine.
The 25-year-old logistics manager said the attack on Ukraine that shocked the world is a point of no return for some Russians who are defying President Vladimir Putin’s long-running rule.
He is among those Russians who fled to Georgia in large numbers within days – or even hours – of Moscow’s invasion, escaping stifling Western sanctions and a feared escalation of official repression.
“The majority of Russians support Putin and it’s very difficult even to be politically neutral,” he told AFP from the favorite bar of Russian expats deep in Tbilisi’s maze of narrow streets.
“I am against Putin and the only prospect I have in Russia is to end up in prison – like Navalny.”
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who led the largest anti-Putin protests Russia has seen in recent years, has been jailed and his political organizations banned.
There are few routes out of Russia for those wishing to depart now. Western airspace is largely closed to Russian airlines.
But Tbilisi has served as a hub for Russian opposition circles for years, and Georgia is one of the few countries where Russians can stay for a year without a visa.
Computer programmer Marina Boldyreva was drinking her beer at a nearby table and said she was on vacation in the Black Sea country when Putin announced the attack.
Upon hearing the news, she decided not to return to Saint Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city, and turned her break into “an immigration.”
It will be “impossible to live in Russia,” said the 26-year-old. “It will experience a terrible economic crisis.”
“No moral right to stay”
The new wave of Russian émigrés vividly remember what they did when they heard the news of the invasion that Putin launched in the early hours of February 24.
“I will always remember learning that the war had started,” said Denys Sinyakov, a 44-year-old who works in cinema.
That day he filmed the timeless frescoes of the Assumption Cathedral in the city of Vladimir near Moscow, considered the mother church of medieval Russia.
“I was looking at these frescoes and it was such a surreal feeling. They are in the cradle of Russian civilization – these icons representing darkness and light – but all I could think about was Ukraine.”
His shock was compounded by the fact that his wife is Ukrainian.
“My country attacked my wife’s country. I have no moral right to stay in Russia,” he said.
Sinyakov said he left behind a newly built house where the couple “dreamed of living.”
Not all Russians in Tbilisi agree on Putin’s role in Ukraine.
Emotions ran high among the dozen or so exiles who lined up at an ATM and discussed an invasion that has forced so many to immigrate.
“I fully support Putin. He does what is good for Russia’s interests,” said Larisa Shubova, a 55-year-old businesswoman. “Let the world see our power.”
“What ‘might’ are you talking about?” 34-year-old engineer Pavel Gruzdev retaliated angrily. “Russia is now an outcast.”
“We are pariahs”
The influx of Russians has also triggered mixed feelings among Georgians.
Tbilisi has seen mass rallies in solidarity with Ukraine almost daily since Moscow stunned the world with its full-scale attack.
Georgia itself experienced a Russian invasion in 2008.
Anti-Russian sentiment is rising, with some Western leaders expressing concern that Georgia – and another pro-Western ex-Soviet republic, Moldova – could become the Kremlin’s next target.
Thousands have signed an online petition calling on the government to introduce a visa regime for Russian nationals and tougher immigration rules.
“For those who call this Russophobia, I bet you can hardly imagine what it means to be colonized by Russia,” wrote David Gabunia, a well-known Georgian writer, on Facebook.
Boldyreva said upon seeing anti-Russian graffiti on the streets of Tbilisi: “I want to say that Russia is not Putin.”
She added that she had been repeatedly beaten “with batons” by police during anti-Putin protests in Russia.
Russia on Sunday arrested at least 5,000 anti-war protesters – an unprecedented number in a single day – to quell criticism of its war in Ukraine.
Boldyreva admitted that many of her exiles did not know that Moscow is currently occupying a large part of Georgian territory and that they “would not be welcomed here with open arms”.
“We’re not welcome all over the world and we won’t be for a long time,” she said. “We are pariahs. We are people without a country.”
