Six Russian soldiers who fled the war in Ukraine have been granted temporary visas as they apply for political asylum in France, in what human rights activists describe as the first major case of a group of deserters being admitted to a EU country.
The men arrived in Paris on separate flights over the last few months after initially fleeing Russia to Kazakhstan in 2022 and 2023, according to an organisation that assists soldiers in fleeing, and to accounts from the deserters.
“When I landed in France, it was the first time I could breathe fully. I felt a sense of calmness and freedom … the worst was behind me,” Alexander, a former Russian contract soldier who was sent to Ukraine and deserted during the summer of 2023, told the Guardian in an interview.
Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, tens of thousands of Russian soldiers have deserted or refused orders to fight, say rights activists and groups that help soldiers flee.
But the west has long grappled with the decision over whether to accept Russian soldiers who have deserted, with questions lingering over whether to treat them as heroes, potential security risks or war criminals. While the EU and its member states have publicly discussed offering asylum to Russian deserters, no decision has been reached and it has proven difficult for deserters to get asylum.
“This is the first time an EU country let in a group of deserters who did not have any travel documents or foreign passports,” said Ivan Chuviliaev, spokesperson of the Go By The Forest, a group helping Russian soldiers desert who worked on the case involving the six soldiers.
Unable to travel to Europe and facing the prospect of long-term imprisonment at home, most deserters fled to countries bordering Russia, such as Armenia and Kazakhstan, where they could enter without a passport but remained trapped without an option to travel onward.
Moscow has gone to great lengths to track them down. There has been a growing number of incidents where deserters hiding in post-Soviet countries within reach of the Kremlin have been kidnapped or deported back to Russia. Their precarious situation has prompted louder calls from anti-war activists to provide soldiers with a safe haven by allowing them to seek refuge in the west.
“In Kazakhstan, you can never feel safe; you just have to keep your head down,” said Alexander, who described living without a SIM card or bank account to avoid being tracked by Russia. From Kazakhstan, Alexander started running an anonymous YouTube channel calling on other soldiers to desert.
Anti-war advocates like Chuviliaev now believe that France’s willingness to admit deserters could set a precedent and send a strong signal to other western nations, potentially accelerating the process.
“France’s decision is the result of extensive collaboration between French authorities and a group of human rights organisations,” said Chuviliaev, whose organisation has helped over 2,000 soldiers to flee abroad.
“We hope this marks the beginning of more deserters being let into Europe,” he added.
Chuviliaev said that each of the deserters was meticulously vetted for months for their “strong, consistent anti-war stance” before being let into France.
“We understand that there are fears in the west that some might not be who they say they are,” he said.
Among those granted temporary visas were men who fought in the war against Ukraine, as well as conscripts and officers who managed to avoid being sent to the front lines.
Chuviliaev believed that their arrival in France could serve as an incentive for other Russians to desert the army.
“For someone contemplating desertion, it is crucial to envision a future in a free country rather than facing jail or a precarious existence in a nation bordering Russia, living in constant fear of deportation,” he said.
The Kremlin has recently stepped up its efforts to clamp down on desertion, hunting down and jailing soldiers at home and abroad as it looks to meet its constant need for manpower in Ukraine. To dissuade deserting, Putin has signed a series of laws toughening punishments, including prison sentences of up to 15 years and the confiscation of the property of fleeing soldiers.
There have also been widespread media reports and personal accounts of so-called “holes and pits”, basements where officers and regular soldiers are held for days against their will for refusing to fight.
The independent news outlet Mediazone has reported that authorities have initiated at least 7,400 cases in the last two years against Russian soldiers accused of abandoning their units without leave. The real numbers are likely to be greater given the Kremlin’s systematic attempts to hide information about the military.
Russia has also pursued deserters hiding abroad, pressuring countries in its geopolitical orbit to hand over Russian deserters. In December 2022, Kazakhstan deported a Russian intelligence officer, Mikhail Zhilin, who had deserted. In March 2023, a Russian court sentenced Zhilin to six and a half years in prison.
Some deserters suffered worse outcomes. In February, Maksim Kuzminov, a Russian pilot who had defected to Ukraine, was gunned down outside his apartment in the beach town of Alicante in Spain where he was residing, in an operation widely attributed to Russia’s intelligence services.
Aware of how far Russia is willing to go to punish deserters, Alexander expressed his hope to help more former soldiers relocate to the west.
“I know what those guys are going through. We can’t let them down.”
