The New York Times Monday published an article describing how thousands of middle-class Russians have fled the country for neighbouring Armenia and (Republic of) Georgia since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent introduction of severe new penalties for dissidents.
This Kos diary is the story of one such family.
I got to know Владимир Рябков (VladimirRyabkov) a couple of months ago when he booked a one week tourist stay for his family at our Airbnb in Vancouver, Canada. This was a family trip — he was coming to visit Canada with his wife and his two young daughters.
Mr. Ryabkov is typical of the small-business middle class that emerged in Russia after the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the communist economy at the end of the Soviet era. He ran a small Subaru repair garage in Tomsk — a small city (half a million) just north of Kazakhstan and Mongolia in southern Siberia. Although he was nowhere near oligarch wealthy, he made a good-enough living to afford travel outside the country every year or two. His next trip would take the family to Toronto and Vancouver for a month this coming summer.
Both Vladimir and his wife Anastasiia were what Americans would call “progressives.” They support Russian dissident politician Alexei Navalny — currently a victim of politically-motivated poisoning and imprisonment by the Putin government. The Ryabkovs believed and hoped that Navalny would eventually inspire the re-birth of democracy in Russia.
Then came the Putin-directed invasion of Ukraine.
… and the crackdown on independent media across Russia;
… and the new laws that made it a treasonable offence to:
- call the “military intervention” in Ukraine an invasion or a war
- make a public protest against the invasion
The penalty for breaking these new laws is up to 15 years in prison and/or conscription into the Russian army with deployment to Ukraine to be used as cannon fodder by drawing resistance fire or with orders to shoot Ukrainian citizens… or both.
After the invasion Vladimir and Anastasiia hit the sidewalks of Tomsk with homemade anti-war signs. Police stopped them and took their names, but this was just before the draconian anti-protest laws were passed. As soon as those new laws took effect the police were at their door to “collect additional evidence” of their anti-war activities.
Vladimir and Anastasiia felt that arrest could come at any moment. In addition to leaving their young children in the hands of an unsympathetic government while they went to prison, an arrest would also mean Vladimir could be drafted into the Russian army and — with a gun at his own head — be ordered to shoot Ukrainian civilians.
Although Vladimir is a Russian citizen he was actually born in Ukraine back when Ukraine and Russia were both part of the old Soviet Union. His mother is Ukrainian. His grandmother was Ukrainian. If the Russians forced him into battle the “enemy” in his gunsights would be his own people. It’s possible he could have literally found himself shooting at family — at cousins and uncles.
His reaction: “I left [Russia at] the possibility of being drafted into the army, and then I would have only one choice, to shoot myself.”
Within the hours of the police visit the family quickly packed up and fled Russia — first for Armenia and then on to the Republic of Georgia, where they are now living in a hotel while organizing the next step in their exile. [See update below — the family is now in Canada making application for asylum.]
“I will never return to Russia,” he told me in an e-mail. “because after Putin someone worse may come. As long as there is no democracy in Russia, changes for the better are impossible”
Shortly after leaving Russia Vladimir posted a powerful three-minute message to YouTube — apologizing to Ukraine and renouncing Russian citizenship.
As a small business owner Vladimir had been able to set aside a nest egg which is temporarily financing his self-exile. Although this leaves him better off than thousands of other exiles-of-conscience, he still left behind a well-established, prosperous business, almost all his personal possessions and all his personal relationships.
They are now a family without a country, without a home, without support networks, without a safety net, without a work permit and without any certainty for the future. Sitting in their hotel room in Tbilisi, Georgia they are just as much refugees from the Putin war machine as the Ukrainians sitting in temporary housing in Poland or Romania.
This is not a happy story, and it may not have a happy ending — nest eggs are depleted when you cannot work, and the European “no fuss” asylum programs for Ukrainians fleeing west do not yet apply to Russian anti-war dissidents fleeing Putin and Russian repression.
I hope the big cable news networks in North America and Europe start highlighting Russians who chose to speak out against the invasion and are now facing the consequences. If their stories of resistance and courage are broadcast it would be good for morale within Ukraine, it would offer encouragement to other Russian dissidents and it would remind the west that it isn’t “the Russians” waging war... it’s Putin. It’s Putin and his spineless inner circle, most of whom apparently are aware this is a big, big mistake for Russia and who — like the sycophants who once inhabited the Trump Oval Office — are afraid to tell the boss he’s harming the motherland.
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