This is half of the picture - there's no "single Russia". The population is fundamentally split between supporters of progress, religious orthodoxists and quasi-criminal gangs on the top.
"Russia is entering a period of decline and political decay. The population is ageing, while the real income of its middle class is falling. Putin has failed to diversify the economy, and global demand for hydrocarbons is set to fall over the next decade."
it is somewhat hard to claim "principled indiferrence" when the EU and UK is still dependent on Russia for hydrocarbons, even if we all move towards EVs some natural gas will still be used for the power generation.
also some companies such as Virginmedia use Russian equipment as key infrastructure due to the cost savings (look inside a VM box next time some kids open it up and you might see the Cyrillic writing on the coax cable amplifiers)
@kravietz also, if Russia was *really* that bad for the ordinary person to live in, we would be seeing a lot more attempts at unauthorised migration of citizens to countries like the UK?
But I hardly ever hear about Russians getting trouble from Border Force (if anything they are actively welcomed in to Blighty, provided they have money and aren't openly committing too much crime (at least on UK soil)
Illegal immigration is a different story - those you see in Calais were really literally struggling for life, and neither Russia nor Belarus are even close. It's just what the article says - economic stagnation.
If you can emigrate legally, for example if you work in high-demand sector such as IT, people emigrate a lot. Lots of Russians working in EU, even in Poland, which has the advantage of being in Schengen but at the same pretty close geographically and culturally.
