Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Russian diaspora is the global community of ethnic Russians living outside the Russian Federation. A related but broader group, the Russian-speaking diaspora, includes all native Russian speakers regardless of ethnicity. By a 2010 estimate from SIL Ethnologue, that Russian-speaking diaspora numbers close to 30 million people outside Russia.
Between 20 and 30 million ethnic Russians are estimated to live outside the Russian Federation, depending on the definition of ethnicity used. The United States alone counted 2,432,733 ethnic Russians as of 2023.
The first major wave was triggered by the October Revolution of 1917 and the Russian Civil War that followed, ending in 1922. Those who fled became known as the White emigres, defined by their opposition to Communist rule. A related pressure was military conscription: avoiding forced service was a primary reason men emigrated during the sequence of wars that ran from 1904 to 1923.
Russian White emigres scattered across the world following the October Revolution of 1917 and the civil war that ended in 1922. In the 1920s, between 100,000 and 200,000 of them settled in Harbin in northern China, with others dispersing to Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin. Thousands also arrived in Albania in 1921 at the request of Prime Minister Ahmet Zogu.
The largest ethnic Russian community outside Russia is in Ukraine, where a 2001 census recorded 8.3 million people. Kazakhstan is home to nearly three million ethnic Russians, representing 14.6% of the population as of 2025. Latvia counted 434,243 ethnic Russians in 2025, making up 23.4% of its population.
A poll by Lord Ashcroft, conducted a week after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, found that 82% of ethnic Russians in Ukraine did not believe any part of Ukraine was rightfully Russian territory. The poll excluded Russian-occupied Crimea and parts of the Donbas. Among all Ukrainians surveyed, 65% said more united ethnic Russians in Ukraine and Ukrainians than divided them.