The reported flight from Russia to the U.S. of Denis Butsayev, the recently dismissed deputy minister for natural resources and ecology, fits a pattern that has emerged since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

It also echoes earlier moments in Soviet history, when defections tended to cluster around periods of instability: the purges of the late 1930s, the chaos following Operation Barbarossa during World War II, the aftermath of Stalin’s death in 1953 and the crumbling of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.

Defectors rarely leave for just one reason. Problems with relationships or money, disagreements with superiors or fear of punishment often play a role.

But such troubles are common in authoritarian systems like the U.S.S.R. and present-day Russia, and most people who experience them do not defect. Something else usually pushes a person over the edge: a growing sense that the regime itself is no longer tolerable.

As in periods of instability during the Soviet era, Russia is once again experiencing a wave of defections. Today, these defections take three forms: articulated, final and geographic.

Articulated defection means speaking out against the regime and exposing its failures. Final defection means suicide. Geographic defection means leaving the country in protest or self-exile.

In the Soviet Union, all three were treated, implicitly or explicitly, as acts of treason. Suicides among Soviet officials became more frequent during Stalin’s purges in the 1930s,........

© The Moscow Times