Argentina has become a distant but fairly popular destination for Russian emigration. The South American country has been especially attractive to couples having children, since citizenship there is granted by birthright. After Javier Milei came to power in December 2023, the situation changed — migrants, including those who come to give birth, started being treated with more coolness. Meduza reports on how Russian-speaking emigrants are living in Argentina — and why many of them are once again thinking about moving.

It’s 9 a.m. at the Buenos Aires City Court building. On one of its 10 floors, a line of about 40 people has formed, waiting to take an oath of allegiance to Argentina — a mandatory step before receiving a passport. About half of them are Russian speakers.

Among those waiting is Anastasia (name changed at her request), from Minsk. Her story is fairly typical: after the crackdown on the 2020–2021 protests in Belarus, she and her husband moved to Turkey, but a year later her residence permit wasn’t renewed. Purely by chance, she read in a Telegram chat that many people were moving to Argentina. That’s how the couple ended up in Buenos Aires in June 2023.

“We got lucky. In May 2025, Milei announced that migration rules would be tightened. He didn’t specify any deadlines or new standards, but I decided not to wait until we’d been in the country for two years and filed our paperwork with the court early. Fortunately, by the time the case reached a judge, the two years had already passed, and our petition wasn’t rejected. Although by that point the rules really had changed, and we wouldn’t have been able to apply for a passport for another couple of years,” Anastasia told Meduza.

Presidential Decree No. 366/2025, known as the DNU, tightened the rules for migrants and was published at 1 a.m. on May 29, 2025 — foreigners in Argentina literally woke up in a different country. Andrei Chestnykh, a lawyer who is himself a migrant and now represents other migrants in court, identifies three key changes in the decree.

First, under the new decree, only migrants who have lived in Argentina continuously for two years can apply for citizenship. Any trip abroad — to Chile, Brazil, or Uruguay on vacation, for example — resets the residency clock.

Second, the two years must be spent in legal status. The clock now starts not on the date of entry but on the date a person receives one of the documents confirming legal residence — a process that can take months.

Third, it’s now the migration service, not the courts, that’s responsible for granting citizenship. “That last point seems technical and not very significant, but it matters,” the lawyer says. ”[More than] 16 months have passed since this decree took effect, and the migration service still hasn’t received its operating regulations. That means that even someone who, by a stroke of luck, meets all the new requirements and can apply for citizenship is forced to wait. The case just sits there gathering dust. The migration service hasn’t issued a single passport yet. Everyone getting a passport right now is getting it by court decision.”

Giving birth in the Beautiful Russia of the Future: Palermo, Recoleta, Belgrano

“I feel like a hostage,” Nikolai (name changed), an IT specialist from Moscow, told Meduza. He stresses that he and his family made a conscious choice three years ago to move to Argentina, rather than fleeing like many others.

“We decided to get legal status as rentiers: we registered lease agreements for a house and an apartment with Rosreestr, got copies of our education documents, and had them apostilled. We got the first blow as soon as we landed: we got internet access and found out that while we were flying for 28 hours, the regulations here had changed, and the amount stated in our documents was no longer enough to get legal status for three people,” Nikolai says.

As a result, the couple applied for asylum as an LGBTQ+ family instead. They were visiting Bolivia when the DNU took effect, resetting their waiting period to zero. “I trusted Argentina, but it deceived me. And there are no guarantees that the laws won’t change again,” Nikolai says.

Elena (name changed), who opened a home-cooking delivery service in Buenos Aires with her husband, is also afraid of this uncertainty. “While we lived in Russia, it seemed like Argentina was a place where it’s always warm. Once we got here, we learned that the ocean is cold, and that you need to go to Brazil to swim and sunbathe. And like hundreds of thousands of Argentines, we went to Florianópolis. Because of these annual trips, we now don’t have the right to apply for a passport, even though my husband and I registered as self-employed, pay our taxes on time, are learning Spanish, and our daughter attends a private school — in short, we’re not freeloading off Argentina. And the scariest thing is that there’s no guarantee we’ll get a passport even in two years,” Elena tells Meduza. She says she’s begun thinking about moving to Brazil, where the water is warmer and, as she sees it, politics are more stable.

“No!” Elena’s husband immediately replies. “I don’t want to start from scratch again, and switch from Spanish to Portuguese on top of that. As long as we’re living and working here legally, we’ll wait.”

“While Buenos Aires residents in Palermo get dogs, Russians have children” — that is how the local outlet Cenital described the situation in Buenos Aires in late 2024. Palermo is one of the capital’s more expensive neighborhoods and, together with Recoleta and Belgrano, forms what Russian migrants jokingly call the PRB: the Beautiful Russia of the Future. These are the neighborhoods most often chosen by the latest wave of newcomers, which is why Russian is easy to hear there.

After the full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine began, the wave of migrants grew so large that Argentina’s leading media began actively covering it, and the country’s biggest national outlets — La Nación and Infobae — even created separate sections titled “Russians in Argentina.”

Most of the coverage focuses on so-called birth tourism — by the first half of 2023, Argentina was receiving up to 400 Russian-speaking pregnant women a week. But while journalists wrote about the benefits for the economy (housing rentals, paid clinics, lawyers, restaurants), officials were more worried. National Migration Service head Florencia Carignano said in 2023 that this kind of tourism threatened the country’s standing: “Our passport is very reliable. If we don’t start controlling who we issue passports to, Argentines will lose the trust of other countries. […] The problem is that they come, have children, leave Argentina, and don’t come back.”

This sharp statement followed the February 2023 detention of several pregnant Russian women at the country’s main airport, Ezeiza. They were suspected of misrepresenting the stated purpose of their visit: tourism. The incident followed shortly after Artem Dultsev and Anna Dultseva, a couple who had lived in Buenos Aires for many years, were exposed as Russian spies.

Non-state media did not support the government’s anti-migrant rhetoric. The newspaper La Nación wrote: “When we Argentines look at planes full of Russians, do we remember the parallel, growing wave of people flying out of Ezeiza airport in search of citizenship, especially Italian and Spanish citizenship? These countries also have organized tours with intermediaries, lawyers, and real estate agents, since finding suitable housing is necessary to obtain residency and citizenship. Spain itself was one of the main destinations for Argentine emigrants during the era of the dictatorship.”

A scandal involving a “Russian sect” broke out in March 2025. The investigation began after a Russian woman gave birth at a hospital in the resort town of Bariloche. The women accompanying her insisted that the child’s father be listed as Konstantin Rudnev, the leader of the “Ashram Shambala” sect, who had previously been sentenced in Russia to 11 years in prison. Doctors found their behavior strange and suspected sexual exploitation, forced labor, unlawful deprivation of liberty, and even human trafficking. Authorities arrested Rudnev and his associates when they tried to fly to Brazil. The investigation is ongoing, and Rudnev remains under house arrest.

Two months later, the explanatory section of the decree that changed the country’s migration rules directly addressed giving birth for the sake of a passport: “The proposed change will help curb “birth tourism” — one of the most widespread forms of abuse of migration law in recent years.” Citizenship by birthright remained in place, but parents can no longer obtain a passport through an expedited procedure and must live in the country for two years like other migrants.

“It’s a strange decision for a country whose only competitive advantage was a strong passport that was quick to obtain,” Artem, an engineer who couldn’t stay in Buenos Aires for two years because of his job and returned to Russia, tells Meduza. His wife and daughter followed him — already with Argentine passports.

Milei changed more than just attitudes toward migrants: what is happening with the Argentine economy

Andrei (name changed), an IT specialist, lived with his family on the outskirts of Buenos Aires for almost three years. He kept working for a Russian company, waking at 2:30 a.m. to be in touch with colleagues starting at 3 a.m. (9 a.m. Moscow time). His wife, a practicing psychologist, was also heavily dependent on Russian clients and the time difference. They were willing to endure these hardships for their children’s future and enrolled them in a private school in Argentina.

“In 2022, when we arrived, tuition cost about $260 a month. For two children that came to $520, but it was manageable since our income was a little over $3,000. It was enough for school, an apartment, food, and even some leisure. But over two years, the school’s prices rose almost threefold, and tuition for one child came to $760 a month. Living in Argentina became very expensive. Plus our parents’ health problems… In the end, we went back to Russia without ever getting citizenship,” Andrei explains to Meduza.

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Argentina’s economy, like the country itself, became the focus of global attention in 2023, when the eccentric Javier Milei — an economics professor, television host, tantric sex coach, and the world’s first libertarian head of state — became president. Even during his election campaign, he toured the country with a chainsaw, promising to “carve up” the caste, cut government spending, shrink the bureaucracy, and slash duties and taxes. He later gave Elon Musk the same kind of chainsaw when Musk took charge of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Economist Maxim Mironov, a professor at IE Business School in Madrid, argues in a review of the Argentine economy that Trump’s and Milei’s economic policies are nearly opposite: while DOGE’s budget-cutting efforts in the United States have led nowhere, Argentina has genuinely started cutting spending.

Researchers at the University of Buenos Aires and the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research calculated that primary spending — excluding interest on debt — fell 27% in real terms in 2024, then by about another 1% in 2025. The government cut more than 77,000 public-sector jobs, or 15.4% of all civil servants, from December 2023 to August 2026, while total spending fell by $3.2 billion.

Milei’s other measures include liberalizing the market for goods and services and gradually lifting currency controls, which narrowed the gap between the official peso exchange rate and the black-market rate. Maxim Mironov says cheaper, higher-quality clothing, electronics, appliances, and cars have appeared in the country.

“Oh yes! It was very interesting to watch the market change,” says Ilya (name changed), author of the Telegram channel Argentinskii Random 2.0 (Argentine Random 2.0), which is popular among migrants, in conversation with Meduza. “I remember, for example, we took the most expensive Samsung smartphone model: over three months its price in pesos fell from 2.4 million to 1.5 million — a 38% drop.”

Before Milei, it was easiest for Russians and other migrants to buy electronics and brand-name clothing abroad: in Chile, Uruguay, the United States, or even Russia. “Over the two and a half years of Milei’s rule, the situation has normalized: big brands are coming back, like H&M or Decathlon,” Ilya lists. Local analysts confirm these observations: overall inflation ran 260% over the same two years, while prices for electronics and appliances rose by only 80%.

Milei’s reforms have another side. The local economy was used to operating under protectionism, and lifting trade barriers for cheap goods made local manufacturers uncompetitive. Combined with public-sector job cuts, this has driven a rise in unemployment.

“I understand very well that Milei’s economic reforms are necessary and fairly effective. What bothers me is that, in addition to economic reforms, he has also launched a culture war against everyone: he curses Kirchnerists and centrists, gay people and feminists, governors and heads of neighboring states who have the nerve to argue with him, journalists and university professors, labor unions, and even the pope. Meanwhile, he and his associates are constantly caught up in corruption scandals,” Nikolai, the IT specialist, reflects. According to him, if Milei loses the 2027 election, he’ll move to Uruguay: “I don’t need this back-and-forth.”

Random in everything

Without waiting for the election, Nadezhda is planning to move from Argentina to Spain with her husband and two children. Having first visited Buenos Aires back in 2009, the couple fell in love with the city and the country, and in 2022 didn’t think twice about where to go. “We didn’t come here for passports, but because we like these open, warm people who work in order to live rather than live in order to work,” she says. “But we’ve already grown tired of constant changes and the low quality of everything. I gave birth to my younger daughter here, we only left the country for tourism, and getting the passport took almost two and a half years, even though some people manage to do it all in nine to 10 months. It’s random in everything.”

Nadezhda adds that she watches how her friends live in Europe — traveling around the Schengen area on budget airlines, for example. “But here, you buy a ticket, and on the day of the flight the airline cancels it and returns your money three months later, after inflation has eaten it up, while the losses from your hotel booking and car rental are your own problem,” the Russian woman adds.

According to her, the last straw for her family was the high cost of living, although close friends left because of the quality of medical care: their child was having nasal polyps removed with a laser when the doctor accidentally cut the nostril. “They bought tickets and flew straight back to Russia, even though they’d already bought an apartment that was still at the foundation-pit stage,” Nadezhda says.

Olga (name changed), a sales manager from Voronezh who lived and worked in St. Petersburg before moving to Buenos Aires three years ago, has also run into problems: “I flew here with stage-three breast cancer, choosing a country with free healthcare. I feel Milei’s reforms on myself — there are visibly fewer doctors, and it’s getting harder to get an appointment.”

Olga says that at first she was helped by an interpreter who had lived in Argentina since the age of three: “She had leukemia. She’s gone now, because she couldn’t get a consultation with an anesthesiologist, and the operation never happened.” She adds that she now buys medications — for an IV drip, for example — in Russia. She has no trust left in local doctors: “After a cosmetic surgery, it turned out the doctors had mixed something up and given me someone else’s implant — my left breast became bigger than my right…”

Olga is already a citizen and receives medical care for free, but that is not the case for most migrants of the latest wave. The same 2025 DNU that tightened migration rules also added a provision on healthcare: free care at public institutions is now available only to permanent residents, Argentine citizens, and the self-employed. People with temporary residency, asylum seekers, tourists, and those without regularized status can only count on emergency care at public clinics.

These changes most likely have nothing to do with the influx of emigrants from Russia: residents of neighboring Paraguay and Bolivia overloaded Argentine hospitals. Argentina’s constitution guarantees the right to healthcare for all people, not just citizens, so many neighbors came to Argentina, got treatment, and went home. In some clinics in the border provinces of Salta and Jujuy, foreigners made up up to 20% of patients, accounting for up to 10% of all medical spending in these provinces. But the new rules apply to all migrants, and there are two options: either voluntary health insurance or obtaining obra social.

“In our first year living in Buenos Aires, one of our cats died right in front of us because of the complete unprofessionalism and indifference of the local veterinarians,” Anastasia recalls. According to her, it was impossible to buy medicine for the cat in Argentina.

“In the end, after three years, we built up so much fatigue with Argentina and Argentines that we decided to leave, even though we’d already bought a small but cozy apartment. For now we want to go to Asia, for at least six months. Then we’ll probably come back to travel around Latin America. But we still dream of going back to Minsk — that’s our home,” Anastasia reflects.

Olga, by contrast, doesn’t want to leave despite the quality of healthcare, and is even buying real estate after selling her house in Russia: “I like the Argentine vibe: they know how to enjoy life, ignore their problems, and live in the here and now. I want to learn that. It’s so nice to see how, on weekends or after work, locals go to the park, sit on the grass, and drink mate instead of beer or something stronger. These are happy people who are ready to share their happiness with others. And the government is not the people.”

Ilya, who opened his own coffee business, is also staying because he sees potential in Argentina. But he now answers more cautiously when asked whether it’s worth coming here now from Russia, Belarus, or Ukraine:

Migrants left without passports recently got some hope: the National Electoral Chamber declared Necessity and Urgency Decree No. 366/2025 invalid on June 30, 2026. The court ruled that citizenship is, first and foremost, the right to vote, and that political rights cannot be regulated by simple decrees without congressional approval. But Argentina is a federal state, and not all provinces have citizenship cases heard by courts that answer to the chamber. Buenos Aires is one example.

“The problem is also that Argentina has diffuse constitutional review. That means the decree hasn’t been struck down “for everyone” by a single ruling — each case requires its own court proceeding,” says lawyer Andrei Chestnykh. “Until the Supreme Court strikes down the decree, everyone who files a lawsuit will have to prove that DNU No. 366/2025 is unconstitutional.” There has already been a first success: on October 30, 2026, a court in Buenos Aires issued the first ruling granting citizenship under the old rules, finding the presidential decree unconstitutional for that plaintiff.

It’s 10:20 a.m. A square in front of the Buenos Aires City Court building. Anastasia and her husband are taking a selfie, with a couple of friends nearby. “Argentina is Argentina through and through: a new citizen takes an oath of allegiance, such an important moment, and there’s no solemnity at all! The text wasn’t even read out by a judge, but by a secretary in jeans!” Anna exclaims.

“Back in your old homeland there was plenty of solemnity and showing off — it’s time to just live, and let solemnity be reserved for the leader’s funeral!” her husband Artem replies.