Last month, for the first time since World War II, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilization of army reservists to bolster Russia’s forces in Ukraine. That meant 300,000 reservists—all men—will be going to the front lines. And, more than 700,000 people have since fled the country to avoid such a fate, according to Forbes Russia. This estimate cannot be independently verified, and has been disputed by the Kremlin. But if accurate, it suggests that nearly 0.5 percent of the population left Russia in just three weeks.

Even conservative projections from border control agencies paint a picture of a nation in flight. During the two weeks following Putin’s mobilization announcement, 119,000 Russians entered the EU and an independent review of Russia’s Federal Customs Service data for the same period showed 200,000 going to Kazakhstan and another 49,000 entering Georgia. In total, because precise figures are hard to come by so […]