Since the beginning of 2022, Israel has absorbed a major wave of aliyah from the countries of the former Soviet Union. The overwhelming majority of these new immigrants have come from Russia. According to a study conducted in 2019−2020 under the author’s direction, the emigration potential among Jews and their family members in Russia at that time stood at 100,000−120,000 people.
It was expected that, in the absence of major upheavals, this potential would be realized gradually. Indeed, emigration among this category of Russian citizens remained relatively moderate throughout 2020, 2021, and the very beginning of 2022. The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, however, triggered a sharp migratory surge.
As noted in our previous analysis, from late February to the end of December 2022 roughly 60,000 new immigrants arrived in Israel from the former Soviet space, of whom approximately 42,000 (70 percent) came from Russia. It is reasonable to conclude that most of the Russian respondents who, in the 2019 survey, were uncertain about their emigration plans (26 percent) decided in favor of leaving—or intended to do so in the near future—once the war began. Many of those who at the time of the survey had no plans to leave (53 percent) also appear to have revised their intentions under the new circumstances. This assessment is largely corroborated by our survey of immigrants from the former Soviet Union who arrived in Israel during the first four months of 2022.
Emigration from Russia accelerated markedly in the summer and early autumn of 2022, especially after the Russian leadership announced the so-called partial mobilization to replenish frontline losses. As a result, potential conscripts and their families, including Jews, began leaving the country in large numbers. By the second half of November 2022, more than half of the roughly 33,500 Russian immigrants who had departed after the war’s outbreak had entered Israel as tourists and only then initiated citizenship procedures. By year’s end, among the 56,000 new immigrants from the Russian Federation who had arrived by that point, two-thirds had followed this path.
At the same time, about 60 percent of the new Russian immigrants stated that their move to Israel had been planned in advance and merely coincided with the start of the war against Ukraine. In the 2019 survey of Russian Jews, a similar share—roughly 60 percent—had expressed an inclination toward repatriation to Israel or relocation to any other country. Thus the 2022 war was not the primary motive for departure for the majority of immigrants: more than half had already intended to move. Over the subsequent three years the number of arrivals from the former Soviet Union declined steadily. In 2023 the figure fell by more than half compared with 2022. In 2024 it contracted by more than half again, and in 2025 the inflow roughly halved relative to the previous year. Immigrants from Russia continued to constitute the overwhelming majority. Even from Russia, however, the inflow weakened markedly in 2025—more than 2.5 times lower than in 2024 and five times lower than in 2022.
This decline is linked neither to exhaustion of the emigration potential—demographers estimated that more than 320,000 people eligible under the Law of Return still resided in Russia at the beginning of 2024—nor to the new war in the Middle East. In the twelve months following the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and the launch of Operation Iron Swords in Gaza, 28,123 people immigrated to Israel, nearly three-quarters of them (20,995) from the former Soviet Union. Russians formed the absolute majority both among post-Soviet immigrants (83 percent) and among overall aliyah (61 percent).
Rather, the contraction reflects the gradual adaptation of residents of major Russian cities—where the bulk of the Jewish population is concentrated—to wartime conditions. Economic and cultural life in the megacities has remained relatively unchanged, and the authorities have effectively refrained from mass conscription of this demographic. As a result, the panic-driven emigration wave has subsided.
Will the “wartime aliyah” immigrants remain in Israel?
It remains unclear how many of those who left Russia intend to return home once the active phase of the war with Ukraine ends. According to research by Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, more than 80 percent of the Russian “wartime aliyah” immigrants of 2022 believed they would remain outside their country of origin. Willingness to settle permanently in Israel correlated directly with the strength of respondents’ Jewish identity. Those who still had close relatives (parents, spouses, or children) abroad displayed noticeably lower confidence that they would stay in Israel long-term than those without such family ties. This difference was substantially more pronounced among immigrants from Ukraine than among those from Russia and other post-Soviet states.
A survey of Russian “wartime aliyah” immigrants conducted in Israel in the summer of 2023 within the international Outrush project found that only 14 percent regarded Israel as a temporary or largely temporary place of residence.
Consequently, the principal trajectory for potential reunification of Jewish families who left post-Soviet countries after 2022 appears to run through the Jewish state itself. Final conclusions are premature, yet the majority of Russian immigrants who moved to Israel between 2022 and 2025 continue to reside there, and a radical reversal of this pattern seems unlikely.
According to a study of the “great aliyah” from the former Soviet Union between 1990 and 2025, conducted by Elina Bardach-Yalov in November-December 2025 with the author’s participation, fewer than 10 percent of post-war immigrants were either already in the process of emigrating or considering leaving Israel. The same survey showed that the war Israel has been fighting since 7 October 2023 against Iran and its proxies has had only a marginal effect on both the “Crimean” (2014−2021) and “wartime” (2022 onward) cohorts. Roughly half the respondents reported that they had no intention of leaving Israel either before or after the outbreak of the new Middle Eastern conflict. Another quarter had planned to leave in any case (though far from all will actually do so), and only about one-fifth had not previously contemplated departure but began considering it after 7 October.
The Russian narrative of “returning” immigrants
Official Russian discourse offers assessments that diverge markedly from the data of surveys conducted in Israel. In January 2025, Alexander Boroda, president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FEOR), claimed that “there was some activity of departure for Israel at the start of the special military operation, but after a short time those who left have in fact all returned.” Moreover, according to Boroda, the number of Jews living in Russia has even increased, because against the backdrop of “the events surrounding 7 October and the open war with Hamas… more Jews arrived in Russia than left since the beginning of the special military operation.”
It is difficult to determine whether this statement reflects any portion of reality or is simply a standard declaration of loyalty to the Russian authorities, who have an interest in portraying the situation inside the country as having stabilized after 2022. Obtaining precise figures on the number of people with Jewish roots who have returned to Russia for permanent residence is extremely difficult. Separating those who have genuinely resettled from those who simply move between two or more countries is harder still. In any event, Boroda’s assertion that essentially everyone has returned cannot correspond to reality: if some have returned, it is certainly not all.
“People left, people came back,” a well-informed source familiar with the situation in the Russian Jewish community told us. “Many returned from Israel because some could not endure the war of 7 October and the three rounds of conflict with Iran. Others failed to find work and went back, while some moved on to third countries. Sometimes it is impossible even to guess that a person holds an Israeli passport. Many shuttle back and forth: the business stays in Russia while the family has been moved to Israel.”
In any case it is logical to assume that this segment of migrants is subject to the same trends as Russian emigration overall. Official and semi-official reports put the share of Russians who have returned from abroad in the range of 15 to 45 percent. Independent research yields different results. The OutRush project concluded that by the summer of 2024 only 8 percent of those who left had returned to Russia, while 21 percent had moved to other countries. A further 5 percent intended to return “next year,” and 28 percent planned to change their country of residence outside Russia. Among those not intending to return within the coming year, 54 percent left open the possibility of doing so “someday in the future,” contingent on political changes in Russia.
According to this and other studies, secondary emigration is most often driven by unfavorable social and legal conditions (discrimination, uncertainty of legalization prospects) in host countries. In Israel these factors, as research conducted there demonstrates, are significantly weaker. There are therefore grounds to believe that many of the Russian immigrants of 2022−2025 who left the Jewish state in the same years had never intended to settle there permanently or had postponed full repatriation. It is quite possible that a certain share of those who departed did indeed return to their country of origin—perhaps in a higher proportion than immigrants from other post-Soviet states. The volumes involved, however, fall far short of those painted by the official Russian narrative.
