Russian Millionaires Leaving Country In Droves, Firm Claims

Millionaires are fleeing Russia in droves after the country invaded Ukraine and the West imposed sanctions, according to Anna Cooban for CNN Business.

Photo Insert: The trend of wealthy people leaving the country seen in the decade preceding the pandemic has resumed and is now accelerating as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February.

According to a report by Henley & Partners, a company that helps wealthy clients relocate abroad, nearly three times as many Russian millionaires are expected to leave the country this year as in 2019, the year before the pandemic.

As Western sanctions make life more difficult for its elite, Russia is expected to lose around 15,000 high net-worth individuals (HNWIs) — defined as people with more than $1 million in assets — in 2022, compared to 5,500 in 2019. According to the report, this equates to about 15% of Russia's millionaire population.

Andrew Amoils, head of research at analytics company New World Wealth, which contributed data to the report, said that Russia was "hemorrhaging millionaires." He told CNN Business "wealth migration figures are a very important gauge of the health of an economy."

It can also be a sign of bad things to come “as HNWIs are often the first people to leave... if one looks at any major country collapse in history, it is normally preceded by a migration of wealthy people away from that country."

In a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the report, saying the Russian government had not "noticed a trend" of millionaires leaving the country. Migration rates among Russia's wealthy and powerful fell dramatically in 2020 and 2021 as COVID-19 restricted international travel and closed borders.

However, the trend of wealthy people leaving the country seen in the decade preceding the pandemic has resumed and is now accelerating as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February.

According to the International Monetary Fund, Russia's economy will contract by about 8.5 percent this year (IMF).

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