“From today’s pool of Russian society, these, in my opinion, are definitely not the worst people.”
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Screenshot: chasiki_ / YouTube
Analyst Artyom Shraibman, in an episode of the YouTube program “Hadzinnichak Tsikae” (Little Clock Ticks), reacted to news that Russians might start moving to Belarus due to internet blockades and Western social networks.
Shraibman notes that if such a migration occurs, it won’t be massive.
“Hundreds of thousands of Russians will not get up and change their place of residence just because their mobile internet, Facebook, or Telegram started to lag or stopped working. If they do move (perhaps hundreds, perhaps thousands), it’s not much in the scale of the country. I think it will be a selection of people who are quite motivated, who aesthetically and ethically do not accept these prohibitions.
They may not have left Russia earlier due to the war and did not protest against the war, because they were not politicized enough, perhaps they were very young when the full-scale war began.
But from today’s pool of Russian society, these, in my opinion, are definitely not the worst people. And I think that the arrival of such people in Belarus does not necessarily mean that some horde has come to us. I would still not paint all Russians with the same brush.”
Moreover, Belarus has a demographic problem, and the country still has to attract labor migrants. And for Russians fleeing prohibitions, Shraibman argues, it’s easier to integrate into our society.
“What happens (Dmitry Hurnevich from ‘Svaboda’ and many others have spoken about this) — in the censuses of Belarus over decades, a trend is visible, in which Russians assimilate and become Belarusians.”