The state of affairs in Russia looks bad.
All independent media are either closed down or blocked. Facebook and Twitter are blocked. More than 13,000 people have been arrested because of anti-war protests. You can get to jail for 15 years for "spreading false information about the special operation in Ukraine." The currency has devalued to half of its value. Foreign firms are pulling out, leaving people jobless. It is also feared that Putin may start sending more people to the war.
At the same time prediction markets give 65% chance that Russia will close its borders this month. No surprise that people are trying to get out while they can.
But it's getting hard. Europe and US have closed their airspace to flights from Russia. Some countries (Czechia, Lithuania) even paused issuing visas to Russians. The rumors are that the short trip from St.Petersburg to Helsinki costs 9,000 EUR.
Lobbying governments for easing visa procedures and fast-tracking the requests seems to be a highly effective strategy to deal with this complex situation (providing permanent residences and eventually citizenship can be dealt with later):
1. From a purely humanitarian perspective, the less people stay behind the new iron curtain, the better.
2. The emigrants are very likely self-selected professionals, programmers, technicians, managers, entrepreneurs etc. Productive middle class, in short. The country that accepts them is going to reap the economic benefits. This can make it easier to sell the proposal to the governments.
3. Every brain brought to safety is one brain less that Putin can use to build new, more destructive weapons. This could lower the existential risk. It could be also used as an argument for the us-vs-them-minded people in the government who don't care about the economic argument.
I am a Russian passport-holder who spent most of my life in the UK and US. I've been a quiet member of the EA community for a couple of years now. Happened to be in Russia when the invasion started. I'm in the middle of grad school application (Australia), and been told that visa applications requested by Russians have been put on hold by several countries, Ukrainians are being given the easy paths. It seems like Hollywood's cancel-culture is being applied towards the country. Universities are cutting ties with schools in Russia, same goes for museums, businesses, and of course, financial institutions. The public pressure to cut ties is massive, but who is the public?
It seems like the world is trying to get people to go out to the street. And people are going out. At the same time, the sanctions imply that even the people who are against the war and Putin (vast majority of people, almost everyone who has access to more than the government news, in my current view) will not be welcome or get any help for doing so. People who are willing to move their money outside the country, leave, and pay their way through it, are unable to do so due to private companies pulling out. At this point, people who have skills, some resources and do not support the regime are turning to Asia, because Asia is not closing its doors, financially and physically. The global-minded professionals, programmers, researchers and entrepreneurs are being left no choice but to either quietly stay, risk everything they have and be arrested at a protest or for calling the "Special Military Operation" a war, or (very generally, of course) go to China.