MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Wednesday it was not “on the same path” as Russians who fled the country after Moscow sent its troops into Ukraine and adopted what it called strong anti-Russian positions, but said such people were in the minority.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was answering questions on the subject a day after Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, suggested that Russians who support Ukraine and now wanted to come back should be sent to a far eastern region known for its Stalin-era Gulag prison camps.
Volodin, the speaker of the State Duma, told lawmakers on Tuesday that those who had left Russia and rejoiced at Ukrainian drone and missile attacks on their country should know that they were no longer welcome in their homeland and should be sent to the Magadan region if they returned.
For Russians, Magadan is synonymous with the Gulag – a network of forced labour camps where Russians were used as slave labour under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.
Asked about the comments, Peskov told a regular news briefing that Volodin had had in mind those who “took a pronounced anti-Russian position and sided with the Kyiv regime”.
“Yes, indeed, we are not on the same path with these people,” said Peskov.
But he said that others who had left whom he described as people who freely choose where they live at any given time were “the vast majority” and were always welcome to return to Russia.
“…Of course, these people always, no matter what, have their homeland – Russia. And she’s always waiting for them,” said Peskov.
Russia’s decision to send tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February last year, and its subsequent mobilisation campaign, prompted several hundred thousand Russians to leave their homeland, though it is unclear exactly how many.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Gareth Jones; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
