Record number of Russians immigrate to Israel

Over the past three years, more than 95,000 Russian Jews have immigrated to Israel as repatriates, the largest wave of migration since the collapse of the USSR.

Dmitry Gendelman, an advisor to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told RIA Novosti.

According to official data, 145,000 people have received Israeli citizenship since the beginning of 2022, almost 65% of whom are Russians.

According to the Israeli Statistics Agency, 2.7 thousand Russians are acquiring Israeli citizenship every month. This is equivalent to the number of Russians who immigrated in one year in the 2010s.

This figure is similar to the 120,000 people repatriated from the USSR in 1989-1991.

According to The Bell, nearly 650,000 Russians have left the country since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war (as of February 24, 2022).

Countries that have accepted the most Russians:

Armenia – 110 thousand

Kazakhstan – 80 thousand

Georgia – 73.6 thousand

USA – 48 thousand

The number of Russians who have emigrated to European and American countries is also increasing.

Germany – 36 thousand

Serbia – 30 thousand

Turkey – 28.3 thousand

Spain – 16.4 thousand

Netherlands – 11.6 thousand

Canada – 11.3 thousand

Argentina – 11 thousand

According to the Russian State Statistics Committee (Rosstat), about 2 million Russians have left the country over the past 20 years.

The Economist compares the current wave of migration to the influx of people fleeing the Bolsheviks in the 1920s.