"The instability in the country - the impact on the economy and so on – and the other thing is that the war is coming back to Russia as well, which means that their men, their boys have to go over there and fight, despite the constant denials that the conscripts are not taking part in the military action, it is no longer possible to hide it," the adviser told the public broadcaster LRT on Thursday.

"It causes certain panic among families, among young people. They are going to leave Russia, the process is set to gather pace," he added, pointing out to similar tendencies in other countries.

"We can see that there will be such a trend from other countries, from the example of Finland where trains are full and people are coming from Saint Petersburg to Helsinki," Budrys said.

He noted, however, that at the moment, the majority of those leaving the country are visa holders, who will have to apply for political asylum later.

"There is a limitation in here, which means that it is currently difficult for Russian citizens to get visas, it is not possible to do that in the normal way, which means that those leaving include people who already had visas before they left, or those new arrivals will have to apply for asylum", the presidential adviser said.

"There may be asylum seekers who do not want to be part of the regime or who have left for economic reasons and we will have to assess this on an individual basis", he added.

In his words, there might also be people who want to leave Belarus for "the safer West".

Russia started a war in Ukraine in late February, sparking condemnation and anger around the world. The EU and the West responded with tough sanctions which have caused the economic situation in Russia to deteriorate significantly.

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