Over 700,000 Russians enter Georgia after mobilisation announcement, 100,000 of them remain in the country

Around 700,000 Russian citizens have come to Georgia after Vladimir Putin’s announcement of the beginning of “partial mobilisation” in Russia, Georgia’s President Salome Zourabichvili says on air of Radio France.

Around 100,000 Russians remained in Georgia, while the other 600,000 could have departed for other countries, according to Zourabichvili. Around 30,000 of Ukrainians that had to flee their country due to the war are also currently in Georgia. 

“From time to time, verbal exchanges take place, but in general, the Russians that came to Georgia and remain here are clearly people that do not want to share the fate of Putin’s belligerent Russia, that do not want to be mobilised,” the president adds.

The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) previously published data on Russians leaving the country in the period from July to September. The number of trips to Kazakhstan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Mongolia, and Abkhazia from July to September is the highest in five years. Nearly 70% of all trips were to Abkhazia, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Finland. The FSB compiles the times citizens have crossed the border, that is, the figure implies the number of trips made, not the number of citizens who left.