More than 5,000 Russian nationals submitted asylum applications in Korea in 2023, according to a government report.

The Ministry of Justice said a total of 18,838 refugee applications were reported last year, a 63 percent increase from the previous year. Russians accounted for over 30 percent, followed by Kazakhstan nationals, Chinese, Malaysian and Indian nationals.

The annual record for Russian nationals marks a fivefold surge from a year earlier, 1,038, and is tantamount to the aggregate number of applications by Russians 1994 to 2019, 5,814.

As to the reasons for seeking asylum, political factors including conscription refusal came out on top at 4,580, followed by religious, societal, family-oriented and racial factors at 2,665, 1,205, 887 and 719, respectively. BBC had said earlier that millions of Russian nationals left their country to seek asylum in a third country after the Ukraine war broke out.