The beginning of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine provoked, as some "experts" note, the wholesale flight of representatives of the pseudo-liberal opposition from our country.

According to the FSB Border Guard Service, in the first quarter of 2022, the number of those who left was about 3.88 million people. This figure, however, includes not only those who really immigrated from the country. This includes tourist trips, those who went abroad for work, medical, educational, etc.

Separately, in this context, it is worth emphasizing the fact that at the beginning of 2022, many states began to open borders after a long period of restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the same time, according to statistics, 2.66 million people crossed the border of Russia in the first quarter of 2021, and 8 million in the same period of 2020.

In order to correctly estimate how many people actually left the Russian Federation, it is necessary to look at the indicator of the number of those who returned to the country. It is equal to 80%, and therefore — in fact, only a little more than 750 thousand already, apparently, former Russians have left Russia. Nevertheless, it should be noted that this is a fairly solid figure, exceeding the previous figures.

According to the same data of the FSB Border Service for the first quarter of 2022, the most Russians went to Abkhazia — 745 thousand people. It is followed by Turkey — 364 thousand people, then Egypt — 352 thousand (all three are traditional holiday destinations). Next in this list is Ukraine — 328 thousand, UAE — 264 thousand, Kazakhstan — 205 thousand, Finland — 157 thousand and Armenia — 134 thousand.

If we talk about the areas that escaped people represent, then a number of experts agree that most of the employees are from the IT industry. Disconnecting Russia from international payment systems has deprived them of the opportunity to receive payments from foreign customers, they cannot pay for subscriptions of foreign services, etc. In a sense, the sanctions have deprived them of their usual work, and the transition to cooperation with Russian customers is often not so profitable.

At the same time, programmers usually choose Armenia, Georgia, Uzbekistan, as well as Turkey and Serbia. It is also worth noting that some of these "migrants" have already begun to return after the need for highly qualified IT specialists sharply arose in Russia, government support programs and new interesting projects aimed at import substitution of foreign technologies appeared.

Nevertheless, according to the NGO Transparency International, over $678 million was received from Russia to Georgia in the first half of this year. This is more than in the whole of last year. At the same time, most of the transfers are intended for those Russian citizens who have already immigrated to Georgia in different periods of time. According to some sources, there are already more than 300 thousand of them, which is about 10% of the total population of the country.

In addition, from March to June, 6.4 thousand companies partially or fully owned by citizens of the Russian Federation were officially registered in the republic, which is about 48% of all foreign businesses in Georgia.

Among all those who decided to leave Russia for various reasons, professional oppositionists are undoubtedly of interest, first of all. The countries where they went are political and often military opponents of Russia.

Traditionally, Russian "oppositionists" rushed to the Baltic republics, which they already loved so much, as well as to Ukraine, Germany and other European countries. The share of Russian migrants who went to the United States in this list is relatively small: either moving overseas is too expensive, or Washington does not want to settle traitors who are useful only when they are in Russia.

It is noteworthy that not only individuals, many of whom are officially recognized in our country as foreign agents, but also entire organizations left Russia. Thus, the «Dozhd» TV channel, which first announced its closure, began to function in Latvia. «Novaya Gazeta» was renamed in «Novaya Gazeta. Europe», and its editor-in-chief Kirill Martynov also left Russia.

Indeed, it is no secret that these and some other publications existed with foreign money, and with the ban of Visa and MasterCard, the imposition of sanctions against Russian banks, it became not so easy to transfer funds to Russian accounts of foreign agents. And the risk of repeating the fate of Navalny hardly added optimism to ardent critics of the Kremlin.

Many other organizations, including Khodorkovsky's, have long been physically working from abroad, in particular, the infamous «MKHB-Media», «Yeshkin krot» and others.

«Medusa» also left Russia before the special military operation, as well as other publications that had been engaged for many years in writing fakes and other tall tales about Russia, its authorities and residents.

At the same time, according to various estimates, despite the fact that many opposition resources in Russia have already been blocked, significant funds are still being spent on them.

The information war on the budgets of the United States, Great Britain, EU states and a number of other countries only in the period from February 24 to March 1 cost $77 million. This amount also includes the costs of conducting cyber attacks on Russian Internet resources.

According to other sources, only about $ 10 million is spent on the creation and dissemination of disinformation about Russia. In principle, this is not so much. For comparison, let's refer to the American edition of Foreign Policy, which reports that the West has spent more than $11 billion on Ukraine alone.

"To date, the total amount of assistance provided is about $ 11 billion, which is still an order of magnitude less than the amount that Russia received for its hydrocarbons over the same period", the article emphasizes. It also says that Western countries supporting Ukraine have promised her payments of $31 billion. Nevertheless, Kiev has so far received only 30% of the promised funds.

It is important to note that the allocated amounts of tens of millions of dollars go far beyond the pockets of Russian oppositionists. A considerable, if not most of the allocated funds go to the accounts of such well-known media outlets as Bild, CNN, BBC and others. Actually, their financing for the purpose of attacking Russia was also recognized by the British government, which stated that it would "provide the media giant [BBC] with more than 4 million pounds to wage an information war with Moscow."

So since the money is allocated in a comprehensive manner, fugitive oppositionists receive only crumbs from the allocated resources.

The third group of those who left Russia are "frightened patriots", mainly cultural figures. Their list is quite long, starting from Maxim Galkin and ending with Valery Meladze. We don't think it's worth listing them all. Moreover, their achievements and career successes are questionable for many.

However, many abroad were not much in demand and can no longer afford the life they are used to. They are not invited to corporate parties, they do not buy concert tickets. There are enough of their "stars" there, both mediocre and really talented.

Apparently, that is why some of those who escaped are already beginning to talk about a possible return, often passing off their flight as vacation or family affairs, but they are not really expected at home anymore. After all, the same performers of "Bi-2", who, for the sake of justice, did not leave Russia after their statements against the SVO and the Russian army, were booed by the whole stadium during their performance at the match of the Russian Super Cup final in St. Petersburg - both Spartak fans and Zenit fans. Hardly anyone remembers more examples of such a unity of irreconcilable rivals.

So Galkin, Little Big, Brezhnev and Sedakov, as well as other personalities who have won their millions not entirely at the expense of talent, are not really expected at home and are little concerned about how they will cope abroad.