Yan Matusevich News Today

Russian politicians have ramped up rhetoric against migrants in recent months with calls for more foreign-born workers to fight in the grueling war against Ukraine topping their list of demands. But as experts point out, Moscow’s labor-short economy needs migrants just as much as the military.

Four men fled to Kyrgyzstan to escape the draft. Do they see a future there? | 1843 magazine

In the initial months after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of people left Russia. Some were fleeing the war’s economic repercussions or the country’s accelerated descent into authoritarianism, while others saw emigration as a moral necessity. Then, in September, Putin’s mobilization announcement set off a new wave of panic, causing another 700,000 or so to leave Russia in a span of just two weeks (though some have since returned).

Tens of thousands of men have ended up in places like Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet territory, that normally see few refugees but are willing to take them.

Russia is offering foreigners a bureaucracy-lite path to citizenship in exchange for a year's military service, but governments in Central Asia have warned citizens they could be jailed for participating in foreign wars.

The risks of Central Asian migrant workers being pressured into joining Russia’s war effort have intensified in tandem with Moscow’s desperation.