Oncologist Ilya Fomintsev moved to Israel from St. Petersburg last year after spending several nights in jail protesting Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and realizing the war would cost his cancer foundation Barely functional.
Fomintsev, who was on a business trip abroad when Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack on Israel last week, insisted on taking an emergency flight to reunite with his family, convinced he must return to their new home in their country’s time of need.
“People did not leave because they were afraid of war (…) Russia was the attacker and people did not want to live with it, so they left,” Fomintsev said.
“Now that Israel is under attack, the situation is completely different. I have been in Israel for more than a year and I have made up my mind that this is my country, my home, my family. I will do everything in my power to help Israel win.”
Russian immigrants to Israel such as Fomintsev, 44, fear that if they stay in the country, they will be prosecuted for speaking out against the war. These people have become central targets of Kremlin criticism in the wake of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
State television mocked them for fleeing a country that has been plagued by conflict since its founding, while senior lawmakers threatened those who wanted to flee Israeli violence with harsh prison sentences if they returned.
Russian parliament speaker Vyacheslav Volodin has announced that returning Russians sympathetic to Ukraine will have the opportunity to visit Magadan, the center of the notorious Gulag concentration camp in the desolate northeast.
“When we talk about people . . . who left the country, committed horrific acts, rejoiced in the sound of gunfire on the territory of the Russian Federation, hoping for the victory of the bloody Nazi regime in Kiev,[they]must realize that they Not only are they not welcome here, but Magadan provides them with security if they come here,” Volodin said on Tuesday.
According to Sputnik, more than 820,000 Russians left in the first year after President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, signed a series of draconian laws that essentially banned dissent, and then conscripted hundreds of thousands of people into the armed forces. the country. study Author: Re: Russia, a website run by exiled academics.
Of those, at least 75,000 traveled to Israel, where many Jewish Russians were eligible for citizenship and funded by government repatriation programs.
They include some of the most prominent Russians to leave the country since then, including Anatoly Chubais, the only senior Kremlin official to resign over the war; tech giants Yandex founder Arkady Volozh is one of the few Russian billionaires to speak out against it; as is Russia’s biggest celebrity power couple, pop legend Alla Pugacheva and comedian Maxim Galkin.
Much of the schadenfreude expressed by Russian state television propagandists focused on former Yandex executive Elena Bunina, who resigned after the war and moved to Israel because she did not want to “live in a country with neighboring countries” “Warring States”.
Margarita Simonyan, editor of the Russian international propaganda network RT, wrote after last week’s attack: “Countries that are not at war with their neighbors are at war with their neighbors again. Let us welcome the departure of Russian pacifists. In fact, no, they unwelcome.”
Israel’s 1.3 million new Russian-speaking members have already acquired their own nickname – “pumpkin immigrants” – because they are allegedly looking for pumpkin spice lattes, rather than the older generation of “sausage immigrants” who left Russia in the 1990s.
There is an occasional gap between what the Russian sociologist Viktor Vakhshtayn, who immigrated to Israel shortly before the war, calls “repatriates” who choose Israel as their new homeland, and “resettlers” who hold out the hope of eventually returning to Russia. Similar tensions arise.
A popular joke asks arrivals whether they are for PMZh, permanent residence or PPZh: “As long as Putin is alive.”
But Vakhshteyn said those divisions have disappeared since the Hamas attack. “Of course there are different groups (of Russian immigrants) in Israel, but they have come together in this amazing wave of solidarity. I saw a lot of people lining up to donate blood,” he said.
“People who would never have been part of the Russian war machine are stubbornly trying to get drafted. Everyone tells them to relax, learn Hebrew and how to hold a gun, and then they’re good to go. But Putin can’t do that without Mobilize 300,000 people if a draft notice is issued.”
For many, the transition to life in Israel is difficult. Alexander Stepunin, 58, a former business manager for a Moscow-based international company, and his wife followed their adult daughter to Israel last year, but he does not understand Hebrew and has difficulty finding work in Israel.
Eventually, the Stepnins changed gears and opened an online store for Russian children’s books, which they cover for operating expenses but have yet to turn a profit.
His daughter was a year away from graduating with a bachelor’s degree at one of Russia’s top universities, but decided to drop out after the invasion and now works in a cafe.
“It’s a huge downshift,” he said. However, he said he could not imagine staying in Russia. “The social climate, the propaganda – I couldn’t stand it. Even in the Soviet Union, where I grew up, such things could not be said on television, radio or other media.”
After last weekend’s tragedy, I felt like I couldn’t imagine leaving Israel. “We stand with the people of Israel. This is our land. I am Jewish and I feel strongly about this.”
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