RUSSIAN students and graduates living in Britain should go home immediately, so they can be sent to study or work in Siberia, says a new official initiative.
The threat of security problems and “provocations” in the wake of the Skripals' poisoning means they should flee now and move to the “wild east” of Russia.
A campaign aimed at bringing home young people studying in the UK and other Western countries has been launched by an official group representing former Soviet states.
They are told that there are excellent opportunities in the far east of Siberia instead of London - but the plan has been mocked on social media.
In recent years some of Russia’s brightest students, as well as high-flying financial and technological graduates, have gravitated to major British universities and companies
But they now face a ‘noticeable negative impact of Russophobic attitudes" in the wake of the Salisbury poisonings, warned Olga Evko, a representative of Rossotrudnichestvo, the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, Compatriots Living Abroad and International Humanitarian Cooperation.
Russians are informed by their state-run media that the Skripals were poisoned not by Moscow but an MI5 or MI6 in a conspiracy to damage the Kremlin.
Britain has been blamed, too, for the chemical attack on Syria.
Another figure behind Moscow's “It’s time to go home” returnee scheme, Oksana Buryak, said: “The question for our youngsters studying abroad is very serious indeed.
“We have real grounds to worry that young Russians may suffer in provocations in counties that show an unfriendly attitude to (us).”
Oleg Mansurov, of PreActum entrepreneurial community, told a Moscow conference on the plan that those with education and work experience in Britain “will be ready to take part in ambitious projects and move again, including to the Far East of Russia”.
He called for “passionate graduates” to return and help develop Russia’s backward far east.
High salaries will be offered to the best brains, he indicated.
Vladimir Putin is seeking to radically boost the economy of eastern Siberia and Russia’s Pacific rim to counter the negative impact of Western sanctions by expanding gas and oil production, gold and diamond mining, as well as nuclear energy and the digital economy.
Returnees are told it is "highly likely" they will be welcomed back: the same phrase used by Theresa May to describe the probability of the attack in Salisbury being by the Russian state.
Some student returnees may not have to endure exile as far away as Siberia.
Some going back to Russia will be fast-tracked into top universities in the capital including the prestigious Moscow State Institute of International Relations, it is reported.
The British embassy was quoted saying “as ever” Russians were welcome in the UK as students or tourists.
And a survey by Kommersant newspaper failed to detect any hostility to Russians in Britain.
The initiative was ridiculed on social media.
Yana Prigozhina said: “I just can't stop laughing. People who invested so much time in the often an incredibly hard step of moving to study abroad are supposed to buy the idea of 'building the digital economy' in the Far East of Russia?”
Referring to a former Gulag transit point in eastern Siberia, Maria G asked sarcastically “Why don't I just swap my PhD in Cambridge for a job in Magadan?
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