France has become the first country in the EU to take in Russian ex-soldiers without passports fleeing the war in Ukraine. Staying in your own country is extremely risky for those who refuse to fight.
(DW) “Deserters are not traitors and desertion is not a crime, because there is no other way out of this situation,” said Alexander. The young Russian said it was “a reasonable decision for a well-educated person not to take part in a war of aggression”.
Alexander is one of six Russian defectors who have arrived in Paris in recent months. He preferred not to give his surname to protect his identity. They fled first to Kazakhstan and then to France between 2022 and 2023. They now hope to be granted political asylum.
The German human rights and refugee protection association Pro Asyl estimates that at least 250,000 conscripted Russian soldiers sought protection in other countries between February 2022 – when Russia began its war against Ukraine – and September 2023.
The majority sought refuge in Kazakhstan, Georgia, Armenia, Turkey, Serbia and Israel. There are reports, however, that defectors have been deported back to Russia from Kazakhstan and Armenia.
Pro Asyl said that only a few Russian soldiers had fled to any of the Schengen Area states – the free transit zone between borders that includes 29 European countries. Getting to these countries is a challenging task, with many European Union (EU) countries having very restrictive visa regulations.
France sets precedent
France has become the first EU country to allow passport-free entry to former Russian military personnel who oppose Russia’s war against Ukraine. The soldiers, however, were previously vetted while in Kazakhstan to avoid any problems.
“I understand the concerns of Western countries and why they don’t hand out travel documents to many defectors, since among them may be agents of the Russian secret service or war criminals,” said Alexander. That’s why the men’s trajectory from Russia and subsequent journeys were monitored.
“We checked the backgrounds of all six defectors,” Alexei Alshansky of the Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT), an independent investigative organization of Russian origin, told DW. The CIT itself was forced to leave Russia in 2022.
Alshansky is a former member of the Russian army who helped deserters go to France. “At some point, we contacted human rights activists in the EU and advocacy work began, which lasted a year,” said Alshansky. “All this time, the defectors were in Kazakhstan.”
“I didn’t know why we were in Ukraine”
Of the six men now hoping for asylum in France, only Alexander was directly involved in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where he served as an officer. In the winter of 2022, he was stationed on the Crimean Peninsula, part of Ukrainian territory that was annexed by Russia in 2014.
At first, it seemed that Russia was carrying out a military exercise, the ex-serviceman said. But on February 24, 2022, all the soldiers were put in a convoy.
“There was no order to attack Ukraine, there were no instructions, we simply crossed the Ukrainian border and only then did we realize what was happening,” Alexander recalled. “I was shocked and didn’t know why we were in Ukraine.”
He said he didn’t want to take part in the military operation, but he also knew he couldn’t just go back. “Either my own people would have shot me, or I would have been arrested at the border. I needed a legal way to get back to Russia,” he said.
When he finally received permission and returned to his home in Russia, he immediately applied for discharge from the army. But in September 2022, Russia announced a partial mobilization for conscription.
“It was clear to me that I would be arrested or sent back to the front line unless I fled Russia,” Alexander said.
Stopover in Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan is one of the few countries where Russians can enter without a passport, which attracted many men seeking refuge, including Alexander. After arriving in the country, he contacted human rights activists through acquaintances and applied for asylum.
“I knew it would be difficult to get protection in Kazakhstan, as the country is to some extent still dependent on Russia,” he said. “I wasn’t granted refugee status, but at least my legal stay was extended.”
Alexander also visited Western embassies in search of help. “I knew I couldn’t apply for asylum there and that I could only do so if I was on the country’s territory,” he said.
After two years in Kazakhstan, he was finally able to leave for France. “We were allowed to enter France because we were actively against the war, not because we were deserters,” he said.
No evidence of war crimes
“His involvement in the [Russian] invasion [of Ukraine] was not his decision,” the CIT’s Alshansky said of Alexander*. He does, however, admit that it is not possible to be absolutely certain that the defectors’ stories are true.
That said, there is no evidence that Alexander committed war crimes in Ukraine. “He should therefore receive humanitarian protection, and it’s very fortunate that he did,” said Alshansky.
He is also aware that Ukrainians cannot understand why former Russian soldiers receive such protection. For Ukrainians, “it can be difficult to see the situation from the other side [of the conflict] and realize that not all Russian soldiers want to fight in Ukraine,” he explained, adding that many Russian soldiers just wanted to survive and didn’t necessarily want to fight.
Alshansky pointed out that, under international law, a person is not automatically classified as a war criminal just because they take part in a war. “In the context of armed conflict, humanitarian law guarantees protection to all people who are not involved in committing war crimes,” he stressed.
“Goodbye, weapons!”
According to the ILC, the number of Russian defectors has been increasing since the start of the war in Ukraine. This large part of the Russian population receives no support from Russian society, although desertion is “a really brave step”, in Alshansky’s opinion.
“When someone attends an anti-war demonstration holding a ‘no to war’ sign and then spends several days in jail as a result, they are considered a hero,” he said. “These people can get a visa to another country, there are international programs for them. But if someone flees Russia after spending weeks in a hole, starving and being beaten because they refused to take part in Putin’s war, they get no support.”
Russian defectors usually only receive support from foreign human rights organizations. “Russian civil society is not inclined to help defectors,” said Alshansky. “They are basically paralyzed when they find out that a person has fled the Russian army. This attitude is unfair, to say the least.”
The six Russian defectors taken in by France do their bit to help other Russians who flee the army. They’ve even set up an association called “Goodbye, weapons!”