Russians Who Fled Putin Seek Shelter and Redemption in Georgia
By Evan Gershkovich, Aug. 17, 2022, WSJ

TBILISI, Georgia—Irina Soloveva left Russia two weeks after the invasion of Ukraine, when her boss in the Moscow city government questioned her Instagram posts calling for an end to the war.

Now she is volunteering at a food bank for Ukrainian refugees, one of thousands of Russians who have resettled in Georgia, a former Soviet republic bordering Russia to the southeast of Ukraine that has emerged as one of the main centers for Russians
fleeing President Vladimir Putin’s regime.

Ms. Soloveva, 28 years old, blames herself and her compatriots for looking the other way as Mr. Putin tightened his grip on Russia, allowing him a free hand to launch the largest ground offensive in Europe since World War II.

Like hundreds of the Russians who have flocked to Georgia, she now spends much of her free time offering support to Ukrainians who have escaped the brutal fighting.

“All I want to do is help Ukraine,” said Ms. Soloveva, who works at the food bank several days a week. “Maybe this will help me atone.”

Georgia’s government estimates that about 35,000 Russians have settled in the small Caucasus country of 4 million since the start of the Feb. 24 offensive. About another 50,000 have arrived from Ukraine and Belarus, whose leader Alexander Lukashenko,
has made the country a staging post for Russia’s war. Georgia, which lost roughly 20% of its territory to Russian-backed separatists after facing its own Russian invasion in 2008, doesn’t require a visa for citizens of any of the three countries.

The Russians who have gone south are a mixed bag. Local Russian and Georgian activists surveying the arrivals say they are generally young people in their 20s and 30s, broadly split between those who are strongly opposed to Mr. Putin’s regime and
others, like the many IT professionals, who may not hold strong political views but saw their career prospects diminishing in a Russia shut off from the West.

When the exodus of educated Russians began in March, the Kremlin welcomed the departures. “Many people are showing themselves to be what we in Russia like to call traitors,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “They disappear from our lives on
their own. Some resign from their jobs, some withdraw from their professional lives, and some leave the country and move to other places. That’s how Russia is cleansed.”

Russian exiles frequently visit this Tbilisi bar where Russian comedians perform and raise funds for Ukrainians.

While some Georgians are skeptical of an enclave of Russians taking root in their country with swaths of its territory remaining under Russian occupation, the government has welcomed the émigrés with open arms, hoping to benefit from Russia’s brain
drain.

“They do not pose real threats to Georgia’s security,” said Nikoloz Samkharadze, chairman of parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a member of the ruling Georgian Dream party. “These are people who contribute to Georgia’s economy.”

Russians are nonetheless greeted on every corner in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, with graffiti shouting obscenities about their president and country. Some establishments have instituted quasi visa regimes. Dedaena Bar, set in a park where mass
demonstrations in the 1970s prompted Soviet authorities to retract their decision to revoke the official status of the Georgian language, asks Russians to fill out a form stating they are against the war.

Still, Russians have settled in. According to Transparency International Georgia, Russians registered 6,400 companies in Georgia between March and June, nearly doubling the total of such companies in the country.

Some have launched initiatives dedicated entirely to supporting Ukrainians.

Emigration for Action, founded by a Russian activist, distributes medication. Motskhaleba, launched by an independent Russian journalist, runs a shelter and offers psychological support. Volunteers Tbilisi, the initiative of a Russian who moved to
Georgia several years ago, organizes a food bank, helps direct Ukrainians fleeing the fighting and rents out apartments for those who make it to Georgia. Choose to Help, a network of volunteers staffed by Russians, including Ms. Soloveva, Belarusians,
Ukrainians and Georgians, hands out food, clothes, sanitary products and medicine.

Nearly six months into the war, Ukrainians continue to arrive in the country, driving hundreds of miles through Crimea into Russia and over the Caucasus Mountains. The Russian-led volunteer groups say they are helping to fill the gaps in the government’
s response. At the start of the month, Georgia ended a program of subsidizing hotels to house Ukrainians, citing limited resources and the country’s own tens of thousands of internally displaced people as a result of the 2008 war.

The groups have largely raised funds for their accommodation among fellow Russian émigrés but also through wire transfers from Russians still at home, and have attracted a range of volunteers, along with Ukrainians and Georgians.

Like Ms. Soloveva, some say they are making atonement for having acquiesced to Mr. Putin’s authoritarian rule.

“It’s soul-saving work,” said a woman who after the invasion quit Russia Beyond, an English-language website promoting Russian culture to foreigners and owned by RT, the Kremlin-backed television network previously known as Russia Today. The job,
she said, was her first opportunity in journalism out of college, and while unsavory, there weren’t many others after the Kremlin had spent years squeezing independent media.

“At the food bank people tell you about Mariupol, about everyone who died. You feel the tears coming down your face, and all you can say is, ‘Here’s some buckwheat,’” she said. “But at least you feel that your day wasn’t for nothing.”

Many more of the Russians in Georgia don’t volunteer, but some say they believe that just by having left Russia they are already doing more good than harm.

“The main thing I can do is to stop paying taxes in Russia,” said Viktor Ramin, who was relocated by a global IT company. “It’s the most substantial step ordinary people can take.”

The view differs with one gaining steam in Europe, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin and Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas in recent days all urged European countries to stop issuing visas to Russians as a
way to pressure Mr. Putin’s government.

While some in the Georgian opposition have likewise called for a visa regime for Russians, Georgian Dream has brushed aside the suggestion. Earlier this month, Irakli Kobakhidze, the party’s chairman, described the proposed policy as “xenophobic.”

Georgian critics of their government say the stance is the latest evidence that the Kremlin has sway over Georgian Dream behind the scenes. They point to the party’s growing pro-Russian messaging and the Georgian government’s refusal to join most
international sanctions against Russia, saying the West is trying to drag Georgia into the war. Mr. Samkharadze of Georgian Dream denied that the party has a pro-Russian bent and said that Georgia “has been very consistent in supporting Ukraine and
condemning Russia.”

The critics also note that in several public instances, Russian independent journalists and antigovernment activists haven’t been let into Georgia and face lengthy checks each time they cross the border. Mr. Samkharadze said the entry denials amounted
to “a handful of individual cases” rather than a trend, and that the checks are to ensure the journalists haven’t traveled to Russian-occupied territories in Georgia.

Some opposition-minded Russians worry that they aren’t completely safe from the Kremlin even in Georgia, and have claimed that they are sometimes tailed by Russian security agents.

Last month, Vsevolod Osipov told the Russian news website Meduza that before the war he had been sent to Georgia jointly by the FSB intelligence agency and the Interior Ministry’s Center for Combating Extremism, known as Center E, to keep tabs on
Russian opposition activists.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in Tbilisi, Mr. Osipov, 20, said he had been pressured by the FSB and Center E after they detained him and searched his home in the spring of 2021 for participating in antigovernment protests, and in October
dispatched him to Georgia where opposition activists were already seeking safety before the war. Mr. Osipov showed a copy of his search warrant specifying that it was for his alleged antigovernment activities, but said he wasn’t given copies of working
agreements he signed with the FSB and Center E. The FSB and Center E didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Samkharadze said he wasn’t aware of Mr. Osipov’s circumstances or other claims of Russian security service presence, but said the issue was the prerogative of Georgia’s State Security Service. The State Security Service didn’t respond to
requests for comment.

Mr. Osipov said he acted as a double agent, telling activists he had been recruited, and plotted a way to eventually quit his role. Anton Mikhalchuk of the Free Russia Foundation, which organizes antiwar rallies in Tbilisi, said Mr. Osipov had confessed
to him over the winter that he had been tasked with informing on Free Russia’s activities.

After the invasion, Mr. Osipov said he changed his contacts and cut ties with his handlers. He now works as a sommelier and can often be found at a bar co-founded by his girlfriend, Dariya Zheniskhan, who is from Kazakhstan. Called Ploho—it means “
bad” in Russian—it has become a gathering spot for Russian and Belarusian émigrés. Last month, Ms. Zheniskhan said it sent proceeds from a cookout to the Ukrainian military.

Mr. Osipov said he is pessimistic about the Russian opposition’s ability to unseat Mr. Putin from the Kremlin, but believes Russians still have a pressing task at hand.

“What we can do is support Ukrainians, help refugees, and continue to exist,” he said.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-georgia-russians-who-fled-putin-seek-shelter-and-redemption-11660730403

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