The private jet that took 100 Russians away from Putin’s war

Thousands of entrepreneurs, software engineers, bankers, scientists and designers have fled to neighbouring countries. This is how they got out and what their departure means for Russia.

Willem Marx

Oct 26, 2022 – 8.00am

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When President Vladimir Putin announced the mobilisation of some 300,000 fresh soldiers for his war in Ukraine, thousands of military-age men across Russia headed for the borders, preferring exile over conscription for a fight they didn’t believe in. Within days of the September 21 address, prices for flights to places Russians were still free to visit had soared – if you could get a seat.

Ilya Flaks, who’d moved to Baku, the capital of neighbouring Azerbaijan, shortly after the war started last winter, was getting increasingly frantic calls from friends and acquaintances trying to get out. Why not, he figured, charter a plane and concoct a story of a business meeting that the passengers would claim to be attending?

Bloomberg Businessweek