Losing young workers, particularly your most talented and educated, typically lowers growth, reduces tax revenue, creates staff shortages and rids economies of wealth-creating entrepreneurs. An IMF study found that cumulative GDP growth in eastern Europe would have been seven percentage points higher in real terms between 1995 and 2012 if the region had not suffered high levels of emigration.
Madina Khrustaleva, Russia analyst at TS Lombard, says the brain drain will likely reach levels hit in the 1990s when a floundering Russian economy suffered an exodus. She estimates that 500,000 “highly qualified professionals have left since 2014” when the economy struggled, including herself.
“The Government is trying to help IT companies and to prevent youngsters from leaving the country. But that’s gonna be almost impossible, taking into account what the economy will be able to offer them in the next 10 years… If you are able to leave, you will leave.”
Russia’s labour market is already battling high youth unemployment and a declining population. The latest available World Bank data from 2020 suggests 17pc unemployment for those aged between 15 and 24, far higher than the overall figures – currently at just above 4pc.
Liam Peach, an economist at Capital Economics, says immigrants arriving mostly from post-Soviet states “offset some of the natural fall in the population” in recent years.
“But Russia may find it harder to attract migrants now, while emigration out of Russia may rise. Russia therefore faces a nasty combination of continued weak productivity growth and slow growth of the workforce,” he adds.
Even before the war, many young Russians were considering leaving. Moscow’s economy has been stuck in stagnation for much of the last eight years following the 2014 oil price crash and sanctions from the Crimea annexation.
Last year 48pc of those aged between 18 and 24 said they would like to move abroad permanently, compared to a fifth of all Russians, according to a survey by the independent Levada Centre. It found a tenth of Russians were taking some steps towards leaving.
The recent invasion of Ukraine appears to have been the final straw for young talent worried about a return to the Soviet era of scarcity and brutal authoritarianism – in stark contrast to the comparative freedom and capitalism they have grown up with.
Anna Golikova, a 22-year-old who moved to Denmark from Russia earlier this month, says: “Some people compare this situation to the Soviet Union and how it was back then.
“[Many of us] were born after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. For us we never lived in that reality and it’s very scary that we are going back to these times.”
Anna, who has set up an organisation called Speak Up For Peace that teaches Ukrainian refugees new languages, says younger generations “don’t see any future” in Russia and warns the “consequences will be long term and really affect young people.”
As the economic outlook deteriorates and the exodus of companies gathers pace, many will hope to follow Luka*, who fled to Greece via Uzbekistan and Turkey after fearing that “martial law and mass mobilisation” of Russians to fight are “only a matter of time”.
The Moscow entrepreneur in his mid-20s says his friends are now split between “those who are left and those who cannot”.
“I know for sure that if I come back, it will be only when the government radically changes.”
*Names of interviewees have been changed in order to protect their identity
