As if Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had not already presented quite enough dilemmas for other countries, suddenly there is another one. How sympathetic a reception should Russian men trying to avoid call-up in their home country be granted abroad, and specifically in the UK?
This quandary has arisen following Vladimir Putin’s announcement of what he called a ‘partial mobilisation’ of reservists to serve in Ukraine. The predictable response to the announcement, made at 9 o’clock Moscow time on Wednesday, was a surge of younger Russians trying to leave the country by any means and to any country where they had a chance of being let in.
Direct flights to a host of popular destinations for Russians – including Turkey, the Gulf States and Kazakhstan – were reported to have been booked out within hours, with ticket prices rising out of many people’s budget. There was also a rush to leave the country over land borders: Georgia, Armenia and Kazakhstan being countries of choice. Finland denied there had been a dramatic rush to the border, though the number of Russian cars seeking to cross had edged up.
Some Russian cities meanwhile – including St Petersburg and Voronezh, not so far from the Ukrainian border – saw the largest street protests since the first days of the war; more than 1,300 arrests were made.
The Russian authorities had taken steps to discourage both protests and departures. In a clear attempt to fend off opposition from what could be the most troublesome constituency, defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, gave a televised interview immediately after the president’s broadcast. He insisted that only those with military experience would be subject to the new call-up and specifically denied that students would be drafted, telling them to get back to their studies and not to worry.
Russians, especially younger Russians, are now facing the most agonising decision of their lives
This was never going to work, though. Putin’s announcement of the ‘partial mobilisation’ came in direct contradiction to an undertaking he had given in a speech on 8 March (International Women’s Day), when he assured Russians there would be no call-up. There was also an unpublished clause in the official decree authorising the call-up, which an opposition newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, said set an eventual figure of 1,000,000 for the new call-up, more than three times the official figure.
If Russians, especially younger Russians, are now facing the most agonising decision of their lives, those countries on the receiving end of this Russian exodus face difficult and sensitive decisions, too. The vast majority of European countries have offered their unambiguous support to Ukraine since the start of the war. They have welcomed millions of Ukrainian refugees, and – among European countries, the UK has been in the forefront here – supplied weapons and training for the Ukrainian military.
Where should they stand in the face of a steady stream of mostly young Russian men, trying to escape the call-up in their homeland? It is probably true to say that Europe is more divided on this than it has been on almost any other conundrum thrown up by the Ukraine war.
Some countries, first among them the Baltic States of Latvia and Estonia, are profoundly unsympathetic. Their argument – well articulated by the Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas – is this:
‘Every citizen is responsible for the actions of their state, and citizens of Russia are no exception. Therefore, we do not give asylum to Russian men who flee their country. They should oppose the war.’
In other words, all Russians, just by virtue of being Russian, carry blame for the war, and if they felt so strongly about it, they should have been out protesting from the start, rather than trying to save their own skin now. So, sorry, no help from Estonia, and none from Latvia either. Lithuania, for its part, says it is treating each application on its individual merits, which is also what Finland and most other European countries have said (if they have said anything).
Which, indeed – as the UK well knows, not least in the example of those crossing the Channel on small boats – is the international legal position. The 1951 UN Refugee Convention (to which incidentally both Latvia and Estonia are signatories) says that people cannot be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom. Many of those fleeing Russia will, not unreasonably, argue that they are conscientious objectors to an illegal war and, as such, should be granted asylum.
In some ways, this takes us back to the days of the Vietnam War and the US objectors who sought refuge, primarily in Canada. Efforts were made, not least by the churches and charities representing their cause, to establish who were ‘genuine’ conscientious objectors and who were just cowardly draft-dodgers. The distinction, though, was not easy to draw then, and it is not easy to draw now.
Since Putin’s announcement, officials in Brussels have called for efforts to standardise EU, or at least Schengen-zone, policy on the treatment of Russians fleeing the new call-up. But this looks unlikely, so long as some countries insist on their own tougher line. A spokesman for the EU Commission, Eric Mamer, insisted that the right to asylum remained, but that EU states should take a ‘case by case’ approach on security grounds.
Thus far, the most generous approach to Russians trying to escape the new call-up has come, typically, from Germany, in line with its greater openness to asylum-seekers and refugees generally in recent years. But it is an example that, as with Ukrainian refugees, the UK would do well to follow.
Liz Truss’s government has been trying hard to show that the UK’s support for Ukraine has not diminished since the departure of Boris Johnson. An openness to Russians looking for a way out of the new call-up would help send that message; it would also amplify the message to Russia about whose side it is on.
Accepting the new wave of Russian emigres would have several advantages. It would reduce the pool of those the Russian military has to draw on, if only by a few. Those subject to the new call-up are also, according to the Russian defence ministry, those with particular qualifications and specialities – probably the very qualifications and specialities that could be an asset here. And yes, as the EU is also aware, care has to be taken on security grounds, that a new avenue to the West does not become a new avenue for infiltration, but that risk could, as they say, be manageable.
One drawback for those considering the UK as a destination could be the highly-charged anti-Russian sentiment that prevails here, as in many Western countries, as a result of the war in Ukraine. For Russians fleeing their homeland, this might lead, not only to ostracism, but to physical risk. On the other hand, arriving as a dissenter to the Kremlin’s war, and being seen to work hard and responsibly in specialities – especially high-tech areas – that are needed, could help to enhance the reputation of Russians. Russian emigres might also help lay the foundation for better relations in, what it must be hoped, will be more clement times.
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