Eurostat published the stock of valid residence permits on 31 December 2025. Euronews analysed the data; Mediafax reported on Wednesday, 21 October. 876,600 Russian citizens then held a valid permit in the EU, against 771,800 in 2021. The rise is about 105,000, or 13.6%. It is an annual stock, not an asylum wave and not a policy decision.

Eurostat’s table figure is 876,625. It counts permits valid on the last day of the year, including renewals. It does not show how many people arrived in 2025 and it does not include temporary protection granted to Ukrainians.

Germany had about 218,000 such permits, Spain 116,800, Estonia 78,400. Against 2021, Spain rose by about 44,400, France by 13,700. Cyprus grew about 2.5 times, Portugal about 3.5 times. Latvia, Estonia and the Czech Republic recorded falls.

The 2025 stock is close to the figure published for 2024. The comparison in the Euronews analysis is with 2021, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, not a large jump from the immediately previous year.

The reasons in the statistics are administrative: family, work, study. Family is the largest category in the Eurostat-based breakdown. It does not say why each person left Russia and it is not an asylum statistic.

Communities in Serbia, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan or Turkey sit outside the EU total. They are not residence permits in member states.

The release is a residence statistic. It is not a refugee wave announced on Wednesday and not a new European rule.

Image: Zinneke, Jean Monnet building, Kirchberg, Luxembourg, 10 April 2009, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons; the campus in 2009, not Wednesday publication.

Sources consulted: The number of Russians legally settled in the European Union continues to rise since the start of the war in Ukraine - Mediafax, 21 October 2026; More Russians are settling in the EU with each year of war in Ukraine - Euronews, 21 October 2026.