Fleeing Putin’s Russia: Exiles search for new identity, but find new problems
TBLISI, Georgia — In the hilly, cobblestoned capital of the Black Sea country Georgia, a Russian IT worker made his latest of multiple attempts at what would normally be a mundane task: opening a bank account.
A branch manager, sounding skeptical about Artyom Smirnov’s reasons for being in Tblisi, asked what would happen if he just went home to Nizhny Novgorod, a city in western Russia.
“I could be put in jail just for saying I’m against the war!” said Smirnov, 25. His request for an account was rejected, along with those of a Russian couple at the bank branch.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked Europe’s biggest refugee flow since World War II, with millions of people driven from bombed-out homes and devastated cities.
