Hi-tech specialists flee Russia

They do not want to live under Putin's regime, especially after the invasion of Ukraine. They mostly go to Armenia, Georgia and Turkey, and then move to Europe or the USA. With the flight of hi-tech giants, Russia risks technological paralysis.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - In the convulsive crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, amidst sanctions and economic consequences for Russia and many other countries, the issue of the mass emigration of computer scientists, who do not intend to live under Putin's regime, is becoming increasingly acute. The war is just the last act of a suffocating dictatorship that wants to control all the life of its subjects, and the "defense against the aggressions of the West", which justifies for the Kremlin the operation in Ukraine, identifies the computer network as one of the main front lines.

Since the beginning of March, presidential and governmental decrees have followed one another to retain the "aitišniki", the hi-tech specialists. They are offered tax relief and exemptions from joining the army, but no measure of facilitation or punishment seems to be able to stop the flight, which has already exceeded 100 thousand units. The biggest losses, according to the Skolkovo Institute, concern IT security experts: almost a third of Russian companies in this sector try to transfer their activities and employees abroad.

As Artem Kozljuk, director of the Roskomsvoboda project on freedom of communication, explains to Sibir.Realii, aitišniki can work from anywhere, so they are always among the most sought-after specialists in the world, and Russian specialists are among the most highly rated. "I doubt that top-level experts will be held back by patriotic flattery, which they are opposed to for moral reasons," Kozljuk says.

The site reports the story of two Siberian aitišniki, Vasilij and his wife Elena, who in mid-March moved from Tomsk to Yerevan in Armenia. For many years we have been trying to change something in Russia, we have also taken part in demonstrations in the streets, we have supported financially the free media, but on February 24 we realized that it was all useless.

All computer scientists work with products of international companies, and their exit from Russia makes it impossible to maintain the necessary standards, even for the most popular video games. In the last month all the main distributors of techniques and licenses have left Russia: Apple, Samsung, Nvidia, Nokia, HP, Dell, Amd, Intel, Oracle, even Microsoft has deprived Russians of the possibility of buying Windows and Office licenses, and has blocked access to the Azure Cloud Archive.

In offices and workplaces it is recommended not to damage or break Apple technology devices, because it is now impossible to legally obtain spare parts. Aitišniki have much higher than average salaries, around 7-8 thousand euros per month, and they look for all possible ways out, starting from countries that do not require Russians to have an entry visa, such as Armenia, Georgia and Turkey, from which they can eventually move to Europe or the United States. Tickets to these destinations have increased up to 20 times, and even rental and real estate prices in the Caucasus have increased up to 5-6 times.

Another cybersecurity expert, Sergej Bakulin, explains that "aitišniki have been leaving Russia for some time, at least since 2018, when the policies of systematic restriction to the world of information began, and it was clear that the digital infrastructure would remain obsolete." As early as the beginning of 2021, Moscow's Ministry of Finance warned that up to half a million specialists were missing, and called for funding the sector with heavy investment, which instead all ended up in the military sphere.