Russia Risks Its Most Valuable Resource
Letters, May 4, 2022, WSJ

Re your editorial on military aid to Ukraine (“Taking Ukraine
Hostage to Covid,” May 3): A complementary policy to invest in
U.S. and Western European security would be to encourage the
migration of talent out of Russia. This would have a profound
impact, as the movement of masses of critical talent have always
had throughout the world.

Putin forgot that the “G” in “MiG” is an abbreviation for its originators, Mikhail Gurevich, a Ukrainian Jew who graduated
school and university in Kharkiv, and the “M” is for Artem Mikoyan,
an Armenian. The war will doubtless turn Ukraine into an emptied
land—how many of the millions who left even before this war started
would go back? But how many smart Russians would continue to work
for this barbarian regime? Some have already escaped to Armenia and
Finland.

Recall the roughly one million Jews who left Russia in the late
1980s for Israel. They weren’t doing much in Communist Russia but contributed mightily to Israel’s emergence from socialist stupor.
With talents either leaving or putting their brains “on hold,”
Russia will once again become a technological backwater, as it was
under communism (the much ballyhooed 1958 Sputnik notwithstanding).
--Reuven Brenner, Montreal

Mr. Brenner is author of “History—the Human Gamble,” “The Force
of Finance” and “Labyrinths of Prosperity.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-ukraine-brenner-war-talent-immigration-technology-11651613263

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