In recent years, due to the political instability in Russia, South Korea has gradually become a hot spot for Russians looking for refuge. South Korea's immigration ministry said the number of people applying for political asylum in Russia had reached a record level over the past year, a figure that has become a widespread concern.
On February 26, Britain said that 5,750 Russians will seek refuge in South Korea this year, compared with 1,038 last year, five times the number last year. This figure is more than the total number of Russian refugees between 1994 and 2019.
Of the total number of asylum applications, Kazakhstan (2094), Malaysia (1205), India (1189), in addition to Russia, also have a significant part.
In 2024, Russians remain the largest claimants of refugees. In particular, in South Korea, which has extremely strict asylum requirements, only 4,052 people have been admitted to the country in the past 30 years, which is a small proportion of the more than 103,000 asylum applications.
One person told a British journalist that he had planned to go to Kazakhstan, but later heard that it was the Russians who had been driven away, so he dismissed the idea.
In particular, the grounds for Russians to seek political asylum include **, ethnic discrimination, racial or ethnic issues. In the past two years, the political instability in Russia has caused tens of thousands of Russians to flee their homes, many of them trying to avoid military service.
Another thing that few people know is that five Russians were trapped at Incheon International Airport this year in an attempt to escape a troop move. South Korea's judiciary rejected the refugees' requests, leaving them in an awkward position at the airport. They spent more than five months at the airport, relying on relief food provided by the Korean Immigration Service. Two of them were allowed to leave the country in early 2023.
This is not an isolated case, and according to the US border service, the number of people in the US border areas who have tried to escape Russia has been increasing since Moscow began military service in September. Between October 2022 and February 2023, about 22,000 Russians attempted to cross the southern border of the United States to the United States.