Thousands of Russians are fleeing from Putin’s forced mobilisation. To escape from a call-up – and probable death sentence – on the frontlines of Ukraine, men and women are leaving behind their friends, families and possessions. They must dodge patrols and mobile check points at the borders to catch those trying to evade the call up. The lucky ones make it out. But even once these people have escaped Putin’s clutches, the terror and fear endures.
I met one of these men, Maxim, in a bar in Tbilisi, Georgia. He and his wife had just fled from Russia, after Putin’s ‘partial mobilisation’ order of 21 September. Though it is now well into October, Maxim still seemed agitated from the trauma of the past few weeks. But he was open and forthcoming and readily agreed to be interviewed about his recent experience, provided I changed his name, which I have done here.
I started by asking Maxim, who is 36, what his life had been like before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. It had been good, he said: he had his own apartment, a job with reasonable status and salary, and a girlfriend he loved. When Putin invaded, it came as a terrible shock. ‘I cried the whole week. I understood that my country had made a huge mistake and it would take a long time – many years – for it to recover. And I realised that my own life too was ruined.’
Since then, he’d been planning to leave Russia. Everyone was afraid, said Maxim – the police could plant drugs on you and arrest you if it suited them. They could accuse you of communicating with foreigners if you had overseas friends, and imprison you for that too. Quickly he and his girlfriend got married and started to map out a life in another country. ‘We thought we had a year or two to get it sorted, to get our documents together, to learn the language of the country we were going to.’ Then came that black Wednesday, 21 September, and Putin’s ‘partial mobilisation’. Maxim was eligible for military service and so, as a doctor, was his wife.
‘We were just in shock. For two days we couldn’t think or concentrate.’ On the Friday they’d snapped to and decided to clear out the next morning. ‘We had less than 24 hours to get ready, pack our clothes, go to the notary and give power of attorney to our relatives, while we were gone.’
When the Putin regime collapsed, Maxim fears that things might get worse
The worst thing, Maxim said, was saying goodbye to his family. He’d called his mother to let her know he was leaving and that they had to meet for a last goodbye that night. ‘I just cried and couldn’t even say a word to her… For half an hour, she tried to calm me down.’ At their final meeting they simply hugged. Maxim didn’t know when he would see her again.
In the months before, he admitted, their relationship hadn’t been easy. Since Putin’s invasion in February, Maxim and his mother had started to see the world very differently. ‘In Russia it’s a huge problem – parents want to see Russia strong and dangerous and so on. And children like me, in their twenties and thirties, we don’t want the war. We understand that it’s a huge tragedy for our country, for our nation, for our brother nation Ukraine.’
Part of it was that the young got their news from the internet, their elders from television. ‘It’s just impossible to communicate with them because they watch the state news. These programmes – (they are) just propaganda – they start to create the older generation’s reality for them and their feelings too. They watch them, and they start to get angry, to get furious…The presenters make them feel the whole world is Russia’s enemy.’ It was so sad. He still needed his mother, but she had become a ‘different person.’
By contrast, many of his generation, Maxim said, were used to travelling and meeting people from other countries. The world, they understood, was not against them as their parents thought, and Maxim and his friends wanted to belong to it. ‘We want to have these friendships. We want to communicate.’
Now, like it or not, he and his wife were heading, perhaps permanently, towards that other world. The first day of their trip, packed into Maxim’s small car with all their clothes and documents – a tiny fraction of what they’d left behind – had been relatively normal. But on Sunday, things got complicated. The authorities of North Ossetia, the republic of Russia adjoining Georgia, were reportedly barring people’s way through Vladikavkaz, the region’s capital, to the crossing point. ‘So we had to rethink our route. We went via backroads, through villages.’ They tried not to panic, Maxim told me, even though the Meduza independent news-channel – now headquartered in Riga – was reporting that Putin was about to close the borders.
In the meantime, the border traffic jams had started. There were tailbacks of drivers, frantic to get out of Russia, stretching back several miles. People had now been trapped in their cars for days on end without sleep, food, water or access to a lavatory. Rather than join them, Maxim decided to abandon his car in Russia and, with his wife and her sister, walk the last three hours on foot.
There was one problem: Georgian border controls were not letting people pass without a vehicle. Luckily there were many locals from Ossetia helping to ferry people across in their cars. I was touched by this army of good Samaritans until Maxim put me straight. ‘They were charging 50,000 roubles per passenger (about £700) just to go two kilometres (one mile). But we paid it. It was worth it just to get across.’
The first feeling on the other side, Maxim said, was ‘one of freedom and safety. We were in a safe place, a safe country. We didn’t know what would come later, but that was the main thing.’ But he still couldn’t believe this had happened to him. ‘I felt like one of those refugees from Syria, that you saw on TV. This was me: I had a life in Moscow in the capital. I had a good salary, an apartment and possessions. And now just one bag, and enough water and food for a few hours.’
What would he say, I asked, to those who believe he should have stayed in Russia and fought against his government? Because I knew Maxim would face this feeling, even if it was unspoken.
When he answered his voice shook with emotion. ‘In Russia at the moment there’s just emptiness…Who do we follow? There’s no leader to unite the people. The only power is the FSB. And you know how cruel they are. They can beat you. They can rape you.’
Russians remembered what had happened in Belarus in 2020, when a million people had gone on the streets to protest against the Lukashenko regime. There were multiple arrests and cases of torture. At least nine people had been killed. ‘These were just peaceful demonstrators, carrying flowers. They weren’t carrying guns or driving tanks…And in Russia everyone understands the same would happen to them.’
The most awful thing, Maxim said, was that when the Putin regime collapsed, things might get worse. ‘Because people have got used to this way of thinking. They’ve got used to being poor.’ The television channels – government controlled – all assured them it wasn’t a lack of education or inefficiency or inertia that was to blame for their poverty, it was the ‘Collective West’. ‘It’s very difficult to admit that the problem is inside you,’ Maxim explained. ‘It’s much easier simply to follow the propaganda. “The West is to blame for all the problems of Russia.” So the government needs do nothing to carry out reforms or improve the economy.’
Yet for all his country’s problems, you felt Maxim would miss it. We discussed my own experience in March of fleeing Russia – my adopted home – in not dissimilar circumstances. The adrenaline of sudden change had carried me through the first months, but after that a painful nostalgia had set in.
‘Don’t tell me that, because I believe you,’ Maxim replied sadly. He had lost his home, his ‘reality’ had been completely destroyed. ‘I don’t know if I have a future, or where or what it will be.’ He had no strength to imagine yet what he would miss, apart from his friends and family. ‘And the feeling of my native city, in which my whole life has passed, with which all my memories are connected.’
And what would Maxim say to the ‘Collective West’, for which he was now almost certainly bound? He thought for a long time. ‘I just want everyone to know that there are many people in Russia who are kind. Who are educated. Who are not looking for a war. And who just want to live happily with their neighbours.’
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