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Gallup International has compiled the index of most and least accepting countries for migrants, where the nine of the 10 countries that score a 2.39 or lower (out of a possible 9.0) are former Soviet bloc countries -- with most located along the Balkan route that once channeled asylum seekers from Greece to Germany.

According to the organization’s release, Gallup created the Migrant Acceptance Index to gauge people's acceptance of migrants based on increasing degrees of personal proximity. The index was based on three questions that Gallup asked in 138 countries in 2016 and the U.S. in 2017, collecting reactions to remarks such as immigrants living in this country, an immigrant becoming one’s neighbor, and an immigrant marrying one of the respondent’s close relatives.

According to the Index, the Commonwealth of Independent States is the least-accepting region in the world for migrants. The region's index score is 3.26 out of a possible 9.0. Russia's score of 2.60 on the index is chiefly responsible for the region's low overall score, but just two countries – Turkmenistan (5.36) and Armenia (5.78) - score slightly higher than the global average.