Fleeing War, Fleeing Putin

According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), two years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, as many as 6.5 million Ukrainians are refugees, while another 3.7 million people are internally displaced. By the time the aggregate data for 2023 is released in June, Ukrainian refugees may have eclipsed those from Syria to become the world’s largest refugee population.

The world is experiencing record levels of forced displacement because of record levels of conflict. As of mid-2023, more than 50% of the world’s refugees originated from just three countries: Syria, Afghanistan, and Ukraine.

The world has seen a dramatic increase in forced displacement. In 1995, there were 41.1 million forcibly displaced people worldwide. That number rose to 65 million in 2015, and by the end of 2022 it reached 108.4 million, an increase of 19.1 million from the previous year. Europe is hosting more refugees now than it has at any time since the end of World War II, when UNHCR and the 1951 Refugee Convention were established. At the same time, the US immigration and asylum systems—the latter of which adheres to the 1951 Refugee Convention—are overwhelmed and entangled with discussions about providing additional military assistance for Ukraine. Why is the world experiencing record levels of forced displacement? Does the mass displacement of Ukrainians and Russians have implications for US immigration and asylum policy, or for the eventual rebuilding of Ukraine and Russia?

A New Era of Forced Displacement

Of the 110 million people who were forcibly displaced as of mid-2023, 36.4 million were refugees, while 62.5 million were internally displaced persons, or IDPs. According to the 1951 Refugee Convention, a “refugee” is an individual who has crossed an international border to flee persecution that satisfies at least one of five criteria: persecution based upon the individual’s race, religion, nationality, social group (e.g., LGBTQ), or political opinion. Economic circumstances are not considered persecution, nor are environmental problems arising from climate change. The main difference between a refugee and an IDP, according to the 1998 Guiding Principles, is that a refugee has crossed an international border while an IDP has not. Also included in UNHCR’s figure of 110 million are asylum-seekers and other people in need of international protection.

Both Ukrainians and Russians have sought refuge in the US since the start of Russia’s war, but for Ukrainians, the process has been far easier.

The world is experiencing record levels of forced displacement because of record levels of conflict. As of mid-2023, more than 50% of the world’s refugees originated from just three countries: Syria, Afghanistan, and Ukraine—each of which is currently or has recently been at war. Simultaneously, the world is experiencing what scholar Alexander Betts calls “new drivers of cross-border displacement.” According to Betts, these include, “environmental change, natural disaster, food insecurity, famine and drought, state fragility, and collapse of livelihoods.” However, these more recent motivators are not grounds for asylum according to the 1951 Refugee Convention. This is why the 5.5 million Venezuelans who fled Venezuela as of 2022, and who represented the fourth most displaced nationality after Syrians, Ukrainians, and Afghanis, were not classified as refugees but as “people in refugee-like situations.” The Russians who have left their homeland since 2022 are in a similar (albeit different) situation.

In addition to the Ukrainians forcibly displaced since the start of Russia’s war, Russians have also fled. Some left after the full-scale invasion, while others left following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s call for a partial military mobilization seven months later. Some oppose their government and/or the war. Others have departed for economic reasons, taking their assets and their jobs with them. It is not known precisely how many Russians are currently outside of Russia because Moscow is not forthcoming with this information. Some of the Russians who initially left have since returned, while others are still on the move— transiting from one country to another, depending upon their visa status.

According to data published in The Economist in August 2023, between 817,000 and 922,000 Russians left the country in the first 18 months of Russia’s war. In general, Russians outside of Russia have not received the same temporary protection as Ukrainians outside of Ukraine. Their ideological and economic reasons for leaving are more in-line with Betts’ new drivers of displacement than with the five categories of persecution recognized in the 1951 Refugee Convention. This has made it difficult for Russians to pursue asylum, and even migration.

Seeking Refuge in the United States

The US hosts more migrants and receives more asylum applications than any other country. According to the UN’s population division, the US hosted 51 million “regular” migrants in 2020, which represented 18% of the global migrant population. At 16 million, Germany hosted the second largest migrant population. In 2022, 2.6 million new asylum applications were submitted worldwide, the greatest number ever submitted in one year. The US received 730,400 new asylum applications that year, representing a four-fold increase from the previous year. While the volume of migrants (many of whom are hoping to immigrate) and new asylum applications does not justify the present-day failings of the US immigration and asylum systems, it helps explain the shortcomings—and reinforces why discussions about additional military assistance for Ukraine should be decoupled from immigration and asylum reform.

Ukrainians will be well within their rights under international law to seek temporary protection outside of Ukraine as long as Russia’s war of aggression continues. The longer the war lasts, the less likely the Ukrainians who left will be to return.

Both Ukrainians and Russians have sought refuge in the US since the start of Russia’s war, but for Ukrainians, the process has been far easier. On April 19, 2022, Ukraine joined 15 other countries in receiving Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in the US. TPS came into existence with the passage of the Immigration Act of 1990 and is intended to be a short-term immigration status granted to nationals of a country who are in the US at the time of 1) an armed conflict in their home country, 2) an environmental disaster in their home country, or 3) other extraordinary or temporary conditions in their home country. TPS does not offer a pathway to citizenship, but it does ensure the right to work. As Ukraine’s 18-month TPS designation was coming to an end, the Department of Homeland Security redesignated the status and extended it until April 19, 2025. According to the Federal Register, as of August 2023, an estimated 26,000 Ukrainians in the US were benefiting from TPS. 

Russian citizens do not have TPS in the United States. Asylum is out of reach for most Russians for the reasons mentioned above, and “regular” migration appears to be increasingly out of reach too. According to data published in The Economist in January 2024, 43,000 Russians were apprehended trying to cross the US southern border in 2023. This is a dramatic increase from the 4,100 Russians caught trying to do the same just two years earlier. This is even more astonishing given that Russians have historically had a high asylum-application acceptance rate. Between 2003 and 2023, around 40% of asylum seekers across all nationalities were accepted by the US, while for Russians, the acceptance rate was around 75%. In a very short period, Russians have gone from having a credible asylum application record to increasing numbers trying to cross the US southern border without proper paperwork. Does this have implications for US immigration and asylum policy? Arguably, yes; however, the mass displacement of Russians presents a far bigger concern for the eventual rebuilding of Russia—a far different kind of rebuilding than that which awaits Ukraine.

Rebuilding Ukraine and Russia Requires People

Ukrainians will be well within their rights under international law to seek temporary protection outside of Ukraine as long as Russia’s war of aggression continues. The longer the war lasts, the less likely the Ukrainians who left will be to return, especially if they are parents of children who have become integrated elsewhere. This will be a loss for the reconstruction of Ukraine. However, Ukraine should receive significant support from the international community. While this support will not be able to take the place of the Ukrainians who do not come home, it will be instrumental in helping Ukraine recover.

When Russia’s war ends, Russians will not confront the destroyed apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, electrical grids, and farmland that Ukrainians face daily. Instead, Russians will encounter a sociopolitical and philosophical crisis: Russian President Vladimir Putin committed war crimes against the Ukrainian people while badly damaging Russia’s economy and turning the country into a pariah state on the international stage. No amount of international development support will be able to fundamentally change this reality. Instead, the work of the supporters of the late Alexei Navalny, as well as the Russians who have left Russia over the last two years, will be needed. That work could take decades—time that many of the young, educated, and upwardly mobile Russians currently outside of Russia may not be willing to dedicate to the cause. 

When Russia’s war ends, Russians will not confront the destroyed apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, electrical grids, and farmland that Ukrainians face daily. Instead, Russians will encounter a sociopolitical and philosophical crisis.

In July 2023, I conducted research in Georgia about perceptions and relations among certain groups including young, educated, and upwardly mobile Georgians; Georgian IDPs from the early 1990s and 2008; and Russians who have left Russia since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. One young Russian woman, who migrated to Georgia after her research and activist activities garnered unwanted attention from the Russian police, shared that she “can’t imagine how the [Russian] state or the [Russian] society will change.” She spoke of the shame that she and other Russians feel because of their country’s actions in Ukraine. She also talked about the blame that Russians outside of Russia receive, which causes stress, anxiety, and more shame. I asked this young Russian woman if she thought she would eventually return to her homeland. After trying to reconcile the Russia she had left with the Russia where her family and many friends still live, she responded, “I don’t feel that I [can] be that person who comes back and tries to lead change.” 

The world is experiencing record levels of forced displacement. More than 10 million Ukrainians are displaced either within or outside of Ukraine because of Russia’s war. At the same time, many Russians are outside of Russia too, and the rebuilding that Russia is going to need to do when its war ends is of a kind and a magnitude that is not yet understood.

Jennifer S. Wistrand is the Deputy Director of the Kennan Institute. She holds a BA in anthropology and French from Northwestern University and an MA and PhD in anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis. She is an expert in migration and forced displacement in the Caucasus and Central Asia, and humanitarian and development approaches to managing migration and forced displacement.

Cover photo: A woman sits next to a house destroyed by the war in Ukraine. Shutterstock/Kharaim Pavlo.