VLADIVOSTOK, September 11. /TASS/. Those Russians who left abroad with the start of the special military operation (SMO) will be returning as the growing Russian market becomes more attractive, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with RBC.

"As our growing market becomes more attractive against the background of negative economic trends in many countries where these people preferred to go, these people will be coming home," the Kremlin spokesman said, adding that "the economy is still at the heart of many processes."

"In economic terms we are doing quite well. We have started to develop. We certainly have difficulties. We have problems. We can't help but feel these problems on ourselves, given the unfriendly atmosphere around us. I mean what the countries of the collective West have been trying to do to us. But despite this, we still demonstrate very good parameters," Peskov emphasized.

For example, he cited Russia’s macroeconomic indicators, GDP growth rates expected this year, inflation and unemployment rates, and investment growth. In his opinion, these data show that "this country cannot but become ever more attractive."

"Even a number of European countries, on the contrary, are regressing," Peskov said. Therefore, in his opinion, those Russians who previously left the country "will be returning."

"Some Russians have always preferred to work abroad at certain periods in their lives and to seek more comfortable conditions there. This is normal," Peskov said. He urged everyone to remember, though, that "how many Russians returned when the Covid pandemic broke out."

"We then realized how many Russians were really abroad. And what? They came back. They started looking for and did find ways to return. These people [who are now elsewhere] will gradually return, too," Peskov believes.

Asked whether there were plans to take special measures to encourage Russians to return to their homeland, the Kremlin spokesman noted that "the attractiveness of the country" was the sole measure he could think of. "And the country’s attractiveness is growing. It’s objective," he emphasized.