Putin’s War or Russia’s? How Russian Political Migrants Conceive the Ukraine War

• In Event: Putin's Russia and Autocratization

Abstract

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, thousands of Russians with anti-war and anti-regime views left their country due to fear of political persecution. While much of the ongoing research on Russian political migrants focuses on their activist practices or migration journeys, this paper centers on how Russian political migrants understand and think about the war in Ukraine as well as Russian domestic and international politics. Based on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork and 36 semi-structured interviews in Armenia, Georgia, and Latvia from September 2022-May 2023, I elucidate how different life experiences as well as the context of the country they migrated to shapes the views of Russian political migrants. I demonstrate that being ‘anti-war’ can mean many things–from placing sole responsibility for the war on Putin to believing that all Russian society, including oneself, is guilty.

I show that Russian political migrants, while unified in their opposition to Putin and the war in Ukraine, vigorously debate each other on what should be done to fight the regime and change Russia, how to engage with host country political issues if at all, and more. My research focuses on everyday people rather than the activities of well-known public figures in exile. Doing so reveals how ordinary citizens dealt with the intense repression of the Russian regime prior to emigrating, as well as how they understand themselves in relation to the state. I also critically examine political migrants’ views on their position as Russians living in countries once forcibly dominated by the Soviet Union, with Georgia still contending with Russian aggression to this day, and to what extent they may unconsciously adopt an imperial gaze.

This paper illuminates how the experience of living in a deepening authoritarian state shapes Russian political migrants’ conception of democracy–what they find useful and aspirational in the idea, as well as their assessment of how democracy works in the comparatively freer countries of Armenia, Georgia, and Latvia, in which they have sought refuge. Some believe that Russian institutions, laws, and society are capable of undergoing democratic transformation, whereas others believe that Russia as an entity is too deeply intertwined with imperialism and that the country needs to be broken up in order for people to live democratically. Thus, this paper contributes to the scholarship on state-society relations, authoritarianism, and political migration in post-communist countries.

Author

• Nicole Daphnis, University of Massachusetts, Amherst