Also, many Russians are happy with typical middle class life in Russia. Since the Soviet Union collapsed, typical middle class life in Russia was very good.
Same reason why they won't move to Iran or N Korea.
Maybe North Korea offers them more money?
Maybe Russia has a backdoor deal to have their scientists develop something 'for russia' that people know goes out the backdoor to
Maybe Russia forces them to work on things or they will hurt their families.
Maybe Russia won't let them leave and they are going to do worse things for money unless we keep them employed.
Maybe they hate the US and want to work for their enemies
HN often gets very reductive on why people make the decisions they do. Especially when those are related to decisions made by 'traditional' companies and state actors. Lets not assume that the entirety of the US state department and ULA aren't well informed about the decisions they are making.
I'm not sure why people bring up that time as if it were somehow worse, turns out selling off all your public institutions to corporations at firesale prices isn't a good foundation for democracy. Many of those oligarchs that made out well became the powerbase of Putin, whom MI6 funded and supported.
The West creates its own monsters
India has better average wages than Russia.