Countries hope to gain from Russian tech brain drain

Russia’s tech workers are looking for safer and more productive professional pastures as up to 70,000 computer specialists, have left the country since Russia invaded Ukraine five weeks ago. Many more are expected to follow.

For some countries, Russia’s loss is being seen as their potential gain and an opportunity to bring fresh expertise to their own high-tech industries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin reacted to this by approving legislation to eliminate income taxes between now and 2024 for individuals who work for information technology companies.

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Many people have no plans to return home. An elite crowd furnished with European Union visas has relocated to Poland or the Baltic nations of Latvia and Lithuania.

Mostly people have gone to countries where Russians do not need visas: Armenia, Georgia and the former Soviet republics in Central Asia.

Anastasia, a 24-year-old IT analyst from the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, chose Kyrgyzstan, where her husband has family.

“When we heard about the war on (Feb. 24), we thought it was probably time to leave, but that we might wait and see. On February 25, we bought our tickets and left,” Anastasia said. “There wasn’t much thinking to do.”

“As long as I can remember, there has always been fear around expressing one’s own views in Russia,” Anastasia said, adding that the war made the environment even more forbidding. “I left one day before they began searching and interrogating people at the border.”

“The first wave – 50,000-70,000 people – has already left,” Plugotarenko told a parliamentary committee.

Sergei Plugotarenko is the head of the Russian Association for Electronic Communications.

Konstantin Siniushin, a managing partner at Untitled Ventures, a tech-focused venture capital fund based in Latvia, said that Russian tech firms with global footprint had no choice but to move since many foreign companies are hastily distancing themselves from Russia

Siniushin is urging Western nations to throw open their doors so their employers can take advantage of the unusual hiring opportunity the war created.

Some nearby countries are eager to reap the dividends.

A Global Skills Index report published by Coursera, a leading provider of open online courses, found that people from Russia scored highest for skill proficiency in technology and data science.

Uzbekistan has eased the process for obtaining work visas and residence permits for IT specialists in the past few weeks.

Some countries, like Uzbekistan, are picked as stepping stones because Russian citizens do not need visas for short-term stays. But young professionals like Filippov do not plan to necessarily stay where they first landed.

“If the conditions they find differ from the ones they were promised, they will simply move on,” he said.

In mostly cases, whole companies are planning to relocate to avoid international sanctions. A diplomat from Kazakhstan, made an appeal this week for fleeing foreign enterprises to come to his country.

Kazakhstan is looking to attract high-tech investors with particular interest as the country tries to diversify its economy, which relies on oil exports. In 2017, the government set up a technology park in the capital, Knur-Sultan, and offered tax breaks, preferential loans, and grants to anybody prepared to set up shop there.

The uptake has been moderate so far, but the hope is that the Russian brain drain will give this initiative a major shot in the arm.

Some countries are not so eager

“Russian companies or startups cannot move to Lithuania,” said Inga Simanonyte, an adviser to the Baltic nation’s Economy and Innovation Minister. “We do not work with any Russian company with their possible relocation to Lithuania, and the ministry has suspended all applications for startup visas since February 24.”

Security concerns and suspicion that Russians might spy or engage in cyber mischief abroad make some governments wary about welcoming the country’s economic refugees.