Russians banned from travel to hand over passports within five days: Decree | The Straits Times

There must have been a lot of high-level defections so far to have to resort to this

There were:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/25/europe/russia-fsb-defectors-osechkin-intl-cmd/index.html

Ah Russia you comical evil country, you never fail to impress with some new stupidity

Hunh. The Russian government started a thing a few months back, where they no longer had to deliver your drafted-into-the-army papers in person, they could do it by email. The interesting thing was that the email was considered to be delivered the moment it was sent, regardless of whether anyone actually read it or not - or whether the recipient even knew the email account existed. It'll be interesting to see if the passport restriction is handled the same way.

So they have 5 days to find a way out. That’s all I’m reading from this

5 days to use it or lose it.
I wonder how many will see this as the final push to flee the county now that they've been put into a "now or never" situation.

You're banned from travel. Here's your uniform and gun, now travel to Ukraine and have drones drop bombs on you.

So many Russians on permanent vacation / early retirement / digital nomand lives in five days.