Farhad Ziganshin had left a music career for the Russian military to please his father. Just hours after Putin’s September 2022 mobilization decree, threatening messages began pinging into Farhad’s phone. He panicked. Together with their mother, sister, dog and aunt, they hurried towards the Kazakh border, under the guise of going on a pleasant family holiday.
The Russian commander, nicknamed Sportsmaster, also panicked from the military base when he was ordered into the war in Ukraine, while the Russian soldier Yevgeny had a fellow soldier shoot himself in the leg after experiencing the hell of war in Ukraine.
Like thousands of other Russian soldiers, they deserted.
Here you can read about the war in Ukraine!
Both Farhad, Sportsmaster and Jevgenij got away. But their new, makeshift life in Kazakhstan was not what they had hoped for.
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The Associated Press news agency has spoken to five officers and a soldier who have deserted from the Russian military. All have criminal cases against them in Russia, where they risk ten years in prison or more.
They thought they would be welcome in the West, but that was not the case. All but one live today in hiding.
More desert
The independent Russian media Mediazona has documented over 7,300 cases in Russian courts against soldiers who did not show up for duty since September 2022. Specific cases of desertion, which has the highest penalty, increased sixfold last year.
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In the first two months of the year, more than 500 soldiers, a record number, wanted to desert, according to Idite Lesom (Get Lost), a support group for Russians run by activists in Georgia.
– Last year, three percent of the requests for help came from soldiers who wanted to leave the army. In January, more than a third of all requests we received came from soldiers, says the leader of the group, Grigory Sverdlin.
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The number of known deserters is low when you look at the overall Russian forces.
– But the increasing number is an indicator of morale, says Sverdlin.
– Russian propaganda is trying to sell us a story that the whole of Russia supports President Vladimir Putin and his war, but that is not true, emphasizes Sverdlin.
Watch video: Ukrainian soldiers surrender
The number of asylum seekers has increased
In general, asylum applications from Russian citizens have increased after Russia went to war against Ukraine. Western nations, which support Ukraine in its war against Russia, are nevertheless lukewarm when it comes to Russian citizens seeking asylum and soldiers deserting. Are they spies, war criminals or heroes?
Former Prime Minister of Lithuania, Andrius Kubilius, who now sits in the EU Parliament, argues that the West must support Russians who oppose Vladimir Putin’s war machine.
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– It is in the West’s strategic self-interest. Fewer Russian soldiers at the front means a weaker Russian army, he believes.
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He also emphasizes that it is important not to label all Russians as enemies.
Not easy to get protection
However, a Russian deserter does not have easy access to Western countries.
German officials have said Russians fleeing military service can seek protection, and a French court ruled this summer that Russians who refuse to fight can claim refugee status.
But in practice it has proved difficult for deserters to get asylum, say lawyers, activists and deserters themselves.
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The independent Russian media Mediazona has documented over 7,300 cases in Russian courts against soldiers who did not show up for duty since September 2022. Photo: Pelagiya Tikhonova / AP / NTB
Counting the days
Yevgenij and other deserters who have fled to Kazakhstan dread the day their temporary residence permit expires. They have seen other deserters apprehended by Russian forces and deported from Kazakhstan. Several have turned up in Spain – dead, riddled with bullet holes.
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– There is no help for Russians who do not want to fight in this war. They get no help to get to safety in other countries, Jevgenij points out.
Jevgenij urges Western politicians to reconsider their policies.
– After all, it is much cheaper financially to let a person into your country – a healthy young man who can work – than to supply Ukraine with weapons, he says.
“Sports Master”
As a child, the boy was not particularly good at school, but he could run. Without many opportunities to get a regular job, he was admitted to a free military school. At the military academy, the boy was trained as a radio technician. His real passion was sports, and he was therefore nicknamed Sportsmaster.
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He eventually became a commander, but he himself says that he has never taken part in combat.
The night Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Sportsmaster suddenly knew he would be ordered to fight.
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– At that moment I decided that I would not support this war in any way, he says.
Got combat orders
He stopped showing up at the military base, but was lured back. When he introduced himself, he was given battle orders: Special Military Operation. Luhansk.
His commanding officer asked him to sign. If he refused, he would be imprisoned. Sportsmaster panicked and did what he does best: Run!
Idite Lesom helped him with information on how to get out of Russia. Sportsmaster made it to Kazakhstan, but he is stuck there. Without an international passport, he will probably be arrested at the border because of the criminal case brought against him in Russia.
He now lives as invisible a life as possible.
– Russia puts pressure on Kazakhstan. It is not as safe here as I could wish, he says, and hopes for new opportunities in a safer country.
