Originally Posted by
Beamr
And then there are those who dodged the draft by leaving Russia for decadent west and yet discriminate Ukrainians.
Here's an example of Russian expats mistaking UK reg car in Helsinki as Ukrainian and acting accordingly...
https://twitter.com/TOrynski/status/1599695510322847744
And the relevance between that and thousands of young Russians going to Georgia and Uzbekistan is?
I can certainly see why Russians that support their government would go to Finland and cause a nuisance. I struggle to see a connection with the thousands of Russians that obviously do not support their government fleeing to places like Georgia and Uzbekistan. One problem young Russians face when trying to flee Russia is that there are few countries they can travel too, as many countries won't allow Russians in now. The visa problems that Russians trying to flee from their country because of their government's actions are well documented. One of the more rational young vloggers, Niki Prosin, explained the restricted choice they have in a video a few months ago.
It is worth spending some time listening to their views, especially the way those views have changed as they have become more aware of what their government has been doing in their name. I know this won't go down with at all well those that prefer to demonise all Russians, but my view is that it's always worth trying to gain some understanding of the views of all sides, even if the quality and reliability of some of the data given is less than 100% reliable. What we don't know is how many Russians have left because they either don't agree with their government or they are dodging mobilisation. This photo of the queues trying to get into Georgia a while ago shows that the numbers seem fairly high:
I will add that I have no dog in this fight, have no way of knowing how valid anything said by some of these Russian vloggers is, and no way of knowing their true motives for leaving Russia. What does seem true is that many tens of thousands of Russians have left, though.