Migration
In 2023, 931 Russian refugees turned to Belgium for asylum, mainly men. In 2022 there will be about 200 fewer. Many indicate that they do not want to fight in the war against Ukraine.
In 2023, 931 Russians applied for asylum in Belgium. The newspaper La Libre reports this on the authority of the Immigration Office (OE) and the General Commissioner for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRS). Among them there were 571 men and 360 women.
Before the invasion in 2022, there were also Russian asylum applications in our country, but significantly fewer, and the majority were Chechens. The increase in the numbers of Russian asylum seekers comes as anything but a surprise, amid Moscow’s increasingly harsh discourse and policies.
A sudden increase was already reported last year after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial military mobilization. He was looking for 300,000 reservists. Russians who registered here often indicated that they did not want to fight, but feared the repercussions if they made this known in their own country.
“Si tous les dégoutés s’en vont, il n’y a que les dégoutants qui restent”, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo (Open VLD) said at the time in The seventh day. “If all the degoutants leave, only the degoutants remain.” He explained why Belgium does not intend to receive conscientious objectors: “Today Belgium does not issue visas to Russians, and for the time being I want to keep it that way.”
But politics has no say in this, migration law lawyer Kati Verstrepen said in this newspaper. “Anyone can apply for asylum, and the General Commissioner for Refugees and Stateless Persons is an independent body.”
Russia ranks tenth among countries of origin that apply for asylum here. Syria comes first, with more than 4,200 applications.
