Opinion: Why Are Russians so Desperate for Second Passports? (2025)

A recent joint investigation carried out by independent Russian news outlet IStories and the Belgrade-based Crime and Corruption Reporting Network (KRIK) unearthed at least 204 citizens of Russia to whom fast-track Serbian nationality had been accorded “in the interests of the Republic” since early 2022.

Among the beneficiaries of Article 19 of Serbia’s citizenship legislation, were Kremlin-affiliated businessmen, defense contractors, FSB personnel, tech executives and professional athletes – all of whose livelihoods entail regular and seamless overseas travel. The Serbian passport is an especially attractive proposition in this regard, not least because its holders enjoy unfettered access to the EU, China, Japan and Iran among other places. In addition, securing short-term visas to the “Five Eyes” nations (US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) is far less bureaucratic for Serbians than applicants from Russia, given the migratory risk and threat to internal security the latter poses.

During the first year of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation”, almost 22,000 Russian aliens attempted to illegally enter the US via its porous southern border whereas those of more modest means flocked to Russia’s “near abroad” and the ASEAN region en masse – oftentimes overstaying their welcome.

It is no secret that the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and, in particular, the partial mobilization wave later that year, hemorrhaged much of the federation’s middle-class, working-age population and left these émigrés without any real sense of belonging in the foreign jurisdictions they made a beeline for. Even across the Global South, gone are the days of Russian tourists breezing through immigration checkpoints and being considered a net benefit to the host country’s economy. Instead, they find themselves increasingly viewed through a parasitic lens by local authorities and, as such, are often subject to intrusive questioning upon arrival.

Admittedly, the Russian passport’s strength has improved relative to Q1 2024 according to the latest Henley & Partners Index. However, this is largely the result of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s “speed-dating” diplomatic outreach to various Asian, African, Middle Eastern and Oceanic governments amid Moscow’s ongoing multipolarity push.

As a gesture of goodwill, far-flung developing nations like Myanmar and Malawi, which ordinary Russians have no desire to frequent, let alone settle down in, unilaterally exempted them from entry requirements. By contrast, the legacy Western countries they would much rather visit for leisure or otherwise, have proven tougher to get to following Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine. For starters, the EU-wide airspace ban on Russian carriers remains in effect, meaning that direct flight routes from Russia to mainland Europe are no longer available. Worse still for Russian citizens, Schengen visas are now both costlier and more time-consuming for EU-bound Russians to obtain. In a bid to discourage non-essential travel from the aggressor state, Brussels suspended its visa facilitation arrangement with Moscow back in September 2022.

Domicile diversification

Although the acquisition of alternative passports has emerged as a convenient workaround for affluent Russians to overcome blanket movement restrictions, ease of travel is not their only motive for switching or splitting allegiances. The fact that there had been a nearly eighteen-fold spike in Russians becoming naturalized citizens of Kyrgyzstan from 2021 to 2024 goes to show how “domicile diversification” is starting to take precedence over visa-free access to legacy OECD countries.

One of the 7,000 recipients of Kyrgyz nationality last year via the so-called “quadrilateral agreement” was Vladislav Bakalchuk – the estranged husband of Wildberries CEO and Russia’s richest woman Tatyana Kim, who also happens to be a close associate of Chechen tyrant Ramzan Kadyrov. Meanwhile, Russo-Uzbek billionaire metals baron Alisher Usmanov is believed to have permanently relocated from Moscow to Tashkent as per the most recent Forbes rich list.

For oligarchs like Bakalchuk and Usmanov, Central Asian passports are not so much a status symbol as a back pocket insurance policy to ensure they have the right of abode elsewhere in case a black swan event or “force majeure” situation hounds them out of Russia for good. This could range from facing trumped-up corruption charges at Putin’s behest, to retaliatory Ukrainian drone strikes on Moscow that undermine the Russian capital’s safety and livability.

Likewise, former Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich is reportedly living full-time in Istanbul as a result of being declared persona non grata by the EU and UK alike. Although European golden passports were once coveted by the Muscovite and St. Petersburg elite, the retroactive revocation of commoditized Cypriot and Maltese nationality from Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) on a first-name basis with Putin, prompted them to shift their attention to the likes of Turkey and the UAE.

Both non-aligned middle powers boast similar ‘cash-for-passport’ offerings as well as the bandwidth to push back against external pressure from the European Commission and the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). It is worth recalling that roughly 5,000 deep-pocketed Russians took advantage of the $400k Turkish citizenship-by-investment scheme in the first six months of the full-blown war in Ukraine and another 15,000 snapped up luxury properties in Dubai that very same year.

Moreover, VKontakte founder Pavel Durov, fertilizer mogul Andrey Melnichenko as well as MMA fighters Khabib Nurmagomedov and Khamzat Chimaev were all granted Emirati citizenship via a nomination-based procedure in a country renowned for being particularly frugal when it comes to naturalizing expatriates and treating non-natives as perpetual outsiders.

What next for the rich and the rank-and-file?

For the privileged few Russians who can actually afford them, second passports are tantamount to a second lease on life in light of the hurdles associated with opening offshore bank accounts and the looming prospect of Putin introducing a FATCA-style tax system to recover the capital flight Russia has suffered during the past three years.

Lower down the food chain, a sizeable chunk of the country’s rank and file citizenry has simply given up on “Team Russia” and is done with bearing the emotional brunt of their commander-in-chief’s bloodlust. The 10,500 pregnant Russian women who fled to Argentina to exploit the South American nation’s “jus soli” or birthright citizenship law, underscores just how determined they are to rid future generations of any civic attachment to an international pariah and an EU-designated state sponsor of terrorism.

For the vast pool of anti-war draft dodgers and independent journalists, there are growing concerns that Putin could go down the path of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko and resort to weaponizing passports as a means of luring those he described as “traitors” and “scum” back to their motherland. Should this transpire, Russian exiles in the West risk being condemned to statelessness and having their legal status rendered null and void. Needless to say, clandestine residence-and-citizenship-by-investment (RCBI) options are a sanctions blind spot that the G7 nations continue to remain somewhat permissive of.

If Putin’s inner circle cronies and other high-profile Russians with links to the Kremlin are to feel the full force of punitive measures levied against them, Western heavyweights must adopt a zero tolerance approach towards rogue governments running RCBI programs and the investment migration practitioners doing the necessary legwork on their behalf.

The views expressed are the author’s and not necessarily of Kyiv Post.