Fleeing Putin: Why Moscow's wars are driving Russians to Berlin

A participant in the peace demonstration on Rose Monday on Feb 28 in Cologne, Germany, wearing a yellow FFP2 mask with the inscription "Stop Putin". After the Russian attack on Ukraine, the Shrove Monday festival was cancelled; instead, a protest march moved through the city centre. Photo: Oliver Berg/dpa

Nikolai Ivanov realised that people were starting to leave from around the time when the Ukraine crisis began in 2014.

"One day I noticed that almost my entire circle of acquaintances was gone – maybe 80 people, all emigrated to France, the United States, Germany, Israel, Canada, Australia," says Ivanov, an art historian from St Petersburg.