Russia Welcomes the Best Of the IT Tribe
20:58 30.09.2025 (Updated: 14:59 01.10.2025)
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Well, that man always says things like that. Today he tells us that, thanks to the America’s IT immigration war, new flocks of Indian hi-class experts will move to Russia.
. In any case, adds he, only 5.5 thousand Indians with work permits in Russia in 2021 turned into 36.2 thousand in 2024. Such figures are not in the least impressive for a nation of about 1.5 billion people? But they mean a six-fold growth in only three years.
The man who said these things to the Expert.ru in Moscow is Manoj Kotwani, the top personality in Indian business community in Russia. He is the President of the Indian Business Alliance (IBA) in Moscow, and, as an example, you may read his comments on the work of Indian companies at the recent 34th International Autumn Exhibition of Food and Beverages, WorldFood Moscow. And remember, we are talking about people who are able to sell Indian spices to Russians, so when Mr. Kotwani says that “now is the most opportune time to develop business between India and Russia”, he surely knows something.
But let us get serious: we are talking about hundreds of thousands, the best of the best in the global IT tribe. Nobody is thinking about all of them flocking to Russia after the infamous case of charging, from now on, a $100,000 fee on new applicants for the H1B American visa. After all, the overall number of people in India itself, engaged in the industry, has been put at 5.4 million by at least one source.
This particular source I quote happens to be Chinese (in the Global Times, to be exact). Just like everybody else in the world, the Chinese experts are closely watching the new trends in the industry that is supposed to own the world one of these days.
And that’s what the Beijing expert is saying: top Indian talent drains abroad or to foreign "global capability centers," while domestic giants like TCS prioritize client management over R&D. Also, half of India's IT revenues is made in the American market. The Donald Trump administration's tariffs, 25 percent on most Indian goods since July 2025, doubling to 50 percent at the end of August, do not directly hit services, but ripple effects loom. With AI enabling "services reshoring," US firms may automate domestically, bypassing India to an unprecedented degree.
The Chinese conclusion is: to pivot, India must boost R&D, reform labor laws for flexibility, and foster a startup ecosystem. But with vision, India may well emerge resilient. The storm is here and adaptation is key.
To remind, neither the Chinese nor anybody else is talking about getting all Indian talents back inside national borders, so as to reform the industry in an isolated sandbox. That industry has long been absolutely global. So, it’s nice to read things like the optimistic assessment in the Firstpost.com. The Indian writer is, simply speaking, telling us that the IT world is not just big, it’s getting bigger, and now is the time to open new vistas.
To remind, neither the Chinese nor anybody else is talking about getting all Indian talents back inside national borders, so as to reform the industry in an isolated sandbox. That industry has long been absolutely global. So, it’s nice to read things like the optimistic assessment in the Firstpost.com. The Indian writer is, simply speaking, telling us that the IT world is not just big, it’s getting bigger, and now is the time to open new vistas.
He says: Indian companies have thus far avoided competing with Innovation Centres of their own. These could have come up quite easily in India, and will no doubt do so now. They can also sprout in nearby offshore locations, with liberal tax laws and excellent infrastructure, such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
To add, he goes on, there will be many others such as Canada and Britain wanting to employ Indians for their technical expertise and ease with the English language. But India can also offer long-term visas to Europeans, Americans, Taiwanese, Japanese, Koreans and technical Chinese to set up on their own. We could also collaborate with the Chinese in China and learn rare earth technology, chip magnet manufacturing and probably cyber protection. They want Indian technical talent and are offering visas.
So, he concludes. the question is not really about the potential. It is about how quickly India can move to seize the day.
How is Russia figuring in that big picture of the world of tomorrow? First, it is experiencing almost the same set of problems as India is now. One of the big ideas of sanctions imposed on Moscow in 2014 and 2022 was to show the fatal technological dependence of Russia on the collective West. But, to everyone’s surprise, all kind of Russian hi-tech suddenly moved to seize the day and began to develop successfully a surprising amount of new products. So, we know the feeling, we, too, are looking at the new opportunities in the world with the eyes wide opened, and it helps us to be on the same wavelength with Indian colleagues.
Second, to repeat again and again: IT is global, and an Indian may very well meet a Russian colleagues not only in Moscow, but in the above-mentioned United Arab Emirates, or in India itself and in many other new and surprising places. Opportunities are there.
But, still, how about Mr. Kotwani’s idea of Indian hi-class experts moving to Russia? He in fact is talking about something that is already going on. And that’s not just about IT. The thing is, Indians have got themselves quite a reputation in Russia, and that reputation is of hi-class and very desired, although not very numerous, workforce.
Speaking about numbers, here we are encountering a global problem, and that’s not a problem of the IT sector. I may be too fast with my conclusions, but it seems that the world is ready for reversing its previous ideas of wisdom of mass migration.
We see that change in the US (and how!), we may see it soon in Europe. The difference is, the swarming crowds of Asian or African migrants in European cities are certainly the #1 object of public hatred and desperation. Only difference is, the Americans are starting doing something about that, in their peculiar American way, while the European elites are still claiming that you cannot really discuss that problem.
Russia is closer to America in that regard. The people who say that the crowds of Central Asian low-skilled workers cannot be tolerated, used to be called kind of extremists. The watershed came in January 24, when Ukraine has hired four Central Asians for a terrorist attack on Moscow Crocus City Hall, where 145 people died. Mass checking of documents with deportation of illegals have become a norm since then, as well as inspections of schools where the majority of pupils happens to be of migrant’s families, with no knowledge of Russian, which makes schooling useless.
The analytical reports followed. It appears that the wider Russian public does not want to see crowds of low-skilled foreign workers everywhere, especially when they form price cartels for all kind of manual work. But everybody likes well-educated and highly skilled experts, especially the ones belonging to ancient and revered civilizations. That means that the best of the best, like the Indian folks of the global IT tribe, have a chance of being popular in Russia.
Dmitry Kosyrev is a Russian writer, author of spy novels and short stories. He also did columns for the Pioneer and Firstpost.com
