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The scientific community has warned that treason cases against scientists will have a chilling effect on young researchers.
Yeah, they're all going to leave Russia and never come back.
Sons and daughters of Russian oligarchs will.
It was always hard and expensive to leave Russia for a first world country, and right now most of those countries are making it even harder and even more expensive than before.
For example Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, (most of which share a border with Russia) banned Russians from entering the countries outright, regardless of purpose, greatly limiting options for leaving Russia via land.
Other countries introduces other restrictions, like directing anyone wishing to get a visa to their embassies in Moscow exclusively. Which is a bit of a problem, considering the size of the country.
Oh, an of course there are inherent restrictions due to the visa facilitation agreement being suspended.
The article above makes it pretty clear Russia is interested in preventing international cooperation. So I wouldn't expect things like joined research endeavors or exchange programs to be common, if allowed to happen at all.
So, how does any of that facilitate brain drain, exactly?
It doesn't. They still leave.
It is not like the border is a wall or something like around north Korea. If they want to leave, they will.
You do realize that crossing a border is illegal, even if there's no wall, right?
First: leaving Russia without a permit is illegal and punishable by fines and/or prison.
Second: Entering any country without a permit is illegal and will get you deported and banned from entering it ever again.
Merely being Russian does not grant anyone asylum rights. Poland and the Baltic states, for example, won't consider any asylum requests, even from persons who are being conscripted. At most, the process can be slowed down with appeals to last a year or more, but it will, almost certainly, end up in deportation back to Russia, followed by Russia prosecuting the deflectors.
Even North Koreans get deported back to NK, despite the fact that the country is considered to be hellhole by pretty much everyone, everywhere.
Oh no it is illegal! Just like any form of draft evasion. Well then just stay and go to the front, the legal way to do things. Much better option.
What a great set of options!
Either become a criminal by deflecting and crossing the border illegally, only to face constant fear of being caught, deported and prosecuted for deflection, illegal border crossing, and treason... Which is basically, a life sentence.
Or become a criminal in the eyes of the civilized world by participating in an attack on a sovereign country. Which, honestly, will most likely result in death.
So, basically: being a Russian, who can't afford to leave the country via the convoluted and expensive ways that are still available, is a crime. Got it! Nice!
There is no legal way, that was the point. You can not just evade getting drafted and expect that to be legal.
Yeah. Yet, meanwhile, a lot of people are talking about some mystical "brain drain". That's not "brain drain", that's a world-sponsored Iron Curtain 2.0. Literally the opposite of that.
No, it really is a brain drain. More so than the "usual" brain drain from poor to rich countries due to the additional stuff in Russia. Unless they close down like north Korea there is no way to stop that.
Maybe instead it'd be better to make the process legal and easier from the outer side so more russians leave and 1) dont get drafted and 2) dont pay taxes to russia?
The risk of letting in a spy or terrorist is too large. No thanks.
It's not hard to get from Russia to any other country, assuming you have enough money. The current sanctions aren't, exactly, stopping Russian oligarchs from having vacations in Europe, for example. Or sending their kids off to colleges there. So, if Russia wanted to send "spies or terrorists". it absolutely would.
And how do you think spying works, exactly? Real life isn't Team Fortress 2, you don't just "get behind the enemy lines", put on a uniform and march into the middle of a military base to pick up some magical briefcase of intel.
Nobody, anywhere, would hire an immigrant to do any sensitive government work. It's easier to find sympathizers among the native citizens of any given country that are already in positions that grant them access to intel. Which is exactly how it's usually done. Same goes for terrorists.
No exchange of information between peers will not exactly help common research, no?
Not a problem, they are needed on the front instead. Why educate and train a researcher when infantry only requires 3 days of training and a shared rifle in the army.
Quick, shoot our foot harder!
No no you're doing it wrong, use the minigun.
The state sponsored brain drains continue at breakneck speed (or perhaps polonium or fall-out-of-a-window speed)
It continues at c.
Give it a few years and Russians will not understand this joke anymore.
Russia's going to have to go full North Korea to keep from losing anyone that is sober enough and has the mental overhead to realize that the country is going straight down the proverbial turlet.
But that many miles of border with nations that have seen just how ineffective they truly are... yeah, that does not bode well for Russia's future.
Two related insights.
Human Decapitalization. The Unsolvable Problems of the Russian Labor Market (June 2023)
Vladimir Gimpelson, Professor of Practice in Russian Studies in the Department Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, discusses the state and prospects of the Russian labor market. From the second half of 2022 onward, the “demographic hole” has been overlaid by war losses, emigration, and structural changes directly related to the war.
'There Will Be no Collapses, but Rather a Viscous, Slow Sinking into Backwardness’ (June 2023)
Natalia Zubarevich, Professor of the Department of Economic And Social Geography of Russia of the Moscow State University, talks about the labor shortage in Russia, the trends in labor migration within the country, how resource exports are being redirected to China, how compensation from the state is helping to get men to sign up, and how Russians, unable to change anything, are building barriers between themselves and the war.