This would would only have helped me to get past the initial resume screening stage; but the face-to-face interviews are more important. I had to do a lot of face-to-face interviews in order to actually get a job so doing it all remotely while pretending to be a local would probably not have worked out. I did manage to line up a few interviews the week before moving to London; I was generally up front about my situation with recruiters (except for the running out of cash part).

Also, the prospect of ending up homeless in Russia without speaking the language was much more terrifying than being homeless in London; at least I would know how to beg in English lol. So I had a strong incentive to move even though I knew that my situation would become a race against time.