Putin resorts to bribing workers to stem Russia’s brain drain
The Kremlin boasts of its economic resilience but tech experts are among those being offered incentives to stay as others flee the prospect of fighting in Ukraine
Anton Krivitsky has been in a dilemma. The computer whizz has become increasingly frustrated with the increasingly grim experience of living in Moscow. For all Vladimir Putin’s swaggering talk that Russia’s economy is beating western sanctions, the long, drawn-out war on Ukraine has sparked surging inflation and eye-watering interest rates, which have killed off any hopes of working for exciting multinational businesses.
And that’s not to mention the prospect of being drafted for the “meat grinder” of Ukraine.
Many of his fellow skilled IT experts are spending today’s Russian Christmas Day abroad, having fled the country in a brain drain that has triggered critical labour shortages.
Krivitsky, 36, had been planning on joining the tide and taking his family to Serbia — one of
