Russians Fleeing Mobilization 'Don't Want to Die, Don't Want to Kill'

Since Vladimir Putin's announcement of a "partial" military mobilization on September 21, hundreds of thousands of Russians have left the country. While the exact figure of net migration to most destinations remains unknown, Kazakhstan's Interior Minister Marat Akhmethanov said in an interview published by zakon.kz on October 4 that 200,000 Russian citizens had entered his country in the previous two weeks, while 147,000 had departed.

Judging from the long lines at border crossings into Russia's other visa-free travel neighbors, the numbers are likely to be similar elsewhere. In the Republic of Georgia, the wave of new arrivals was felt almost immediately. By September 23, the line of cars and bicycles waiting to exit Russia through the Verkhny Lars checkpoint was already several kilometers long. Those who arrived at the border crossing on foot reported that many of the cars they walked past carried families with young children.

Emigres who eventually found their way through passport control and on to the capital of Tbilisi told largely similar stories of day-long waits and uncertain futures. While some came because their past military service all but guaranteed a draft notice in the immediate future, others were young professionals who mainly feared that if they did not escape immediately, potential new Kremlin regulations might soon prevent military-age males like them from leaving the country for as long as Vladimir Putin remains in power.

Most of the new arrivals entered Georgia by bicycle or on foot after first making their way to Vladikavkaz from Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, and other Western Russian cities. From there, they either pedaled or walked past the 10-mile-long line of cars waiting to reach the Russian checkpoint. Even without a vehicle, the wait to get out of Russia took as long as 10 hours, while the subsequent line to enter Georgia moved only slightly faster.

"It was hard to breathe because of all the exhaust from the cars," Dmitry, a journalist from Moscow, told Newsweek. "But it's better to spend an unpleasant day or two waiting to cross the border than to end up in a trench in the Donbas."

When he arrived in southern Russia, it was still not possible to cross the border by foot. So he bought a children's bicycle in town and put it in the trunk of a taxi, which took him to the back of the line of cars waiting at the border. From there, he strapped on his large backpack and rode past the cars to the end of the bicycle line.

"People would hold each other's spots so that they could walk off and get some fresh air," Dmitry said.

After he crossed into the zone between Russia and Georgia, a Russian armored personnel carrier parked itself on the Russian side of the border and began checking to make sure that those waiting to leave had not already been issued a summons to report to their local military recruiting stations. Some who crossed after Dmitry reported that members of their group had been turned back.

"I wouldn't have been on their list," Dmitry said. "I wasn't at risk of being called up in the opening waves, but in Russia, all that means is that I would have had a reprieve."

I don't have military experience, and they say they aren't bringing in people like me at this point, but the policy can always change suddenly," he said. "I didn't want to wait for it to change."

The most recent wave of Russian migrants differs from the cohort that left in the days immediately following the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24. The new group is much more male, and much less political.

"The Februarists left with more of a political agenda. They were activists, opposition figures, independent journalists — people who faced real threats of repression in Russia for being openly against the war," Katerina Kiltau of Emigration for Action, an organization set up by fellow February emigres to provide humanitarian aid to Ukrainian refugees in Tbilisi, told Newsweek.

"The Septembrists, on the other hand, are much more varied," she said. "Some of them are politically conscious, but very few of them were politically active."

"A lot of them simply don't want to die," Kiltau added, "and also don't want to kill."

As military-age Russian men lined up to leave their country, some Ukrainian and Western activists began calling for policies that would force the aspiring evacuees to return home. A common refrain was that if Russians were truly against the Kremlin's war, then they ought to take to the streets to overthrow the Kremlin regime rather than trying to escape it.

Kiltau vehemently disagrees.

"As a person who is coming directly from Russia, where I lived my whole life up until recently," she said, "the idea that we can simply go out and demand that Putin go away strikes me as a little bit naive."

"Even if all a person does is to go out and set up an individual picket holding a blank piece of paper, they risk being arrested and drafted into the military," Kiltau explained. "A protest movement under the circumstances is unrealistic, and so the fewer people who remain in the country to potentially be sent off to kill Ukrainians, the better."

Similar sentiments are easy to find among the current wave of migrants. Mikhail, who can still operate his Moscow-based business from abroad, left largely in search of a breath of political fresh air.

"I'm not in danger of being drafted, but I didn't want to get trapped inside of Russia," he told Newsweek. "I'm against the war, but protest is a hopeless cause when the security services hold all the power."

He noted the irony that people like him have the means, both intellectual and financial, to get out, while most of the Kremlin's targets for military service lack either.

"A lot of Russians still support Putin, and a lot of them will willingly go into the army when called on simply because they don't understand what is happening," Mikhail said.

"And even if many of them might want to leave, the average monthly salary in Russia is 25,000 rubles [around $400]," he added. "Most people who are at greater risk than I am of being drafted simply can't afford to go abroad and survive."

While migrants like Mikhail are seemingly everywhere in Tbilisi's suddenly very crowded bars and cafes, a number of those crossing the border really are fleeing imminent conscription, and many are doing so without the means to sustain themselves.

Emigration for Action co-founder Yevgeny Zhukov told Newsweek that his organization, which was set up to aid Ukrainian refugees, is now receiving requests from Russian supplicants.

"We have people coming in every day who just want to know how they can find a way to work to support themselves," Zhukov said.

"There are guys who came here with nothing," he added, "and if we can't make it possible for them to stay, then they'll end up in Putin's army. It's in everyone's interest to make sure they can establish themselves abroad for as long as this war lasts."

Several Russians from this group have already moved on to Turkey, where there are more work opportunities. Early on the morning of September 30, a tall, thin young man with a bushy beard, long hair, and wooden clothespins painted in the colors of the Ukrainian flag clipped to his backpack was washing his face in the fountain near Rustaveli metro station.

"I crossed the border yesterday, and I'm taking the bus to Istanbul in a few hours," he told Newsweek. "I don't know what will happen next. I only know that I can't go back home."

Because of the sudden influx, it is all but impossible for new arrivals to find a short-term apartment rental in Tbilisi, even if they have the money to pay for it. Irina, a Ukrainian refugee who works as an administrator at a local mini-hotel, said that about 10 groups of young Russians drop in every day to see if there is a vacancy.

There rarely is.

"I don't feel any resentment towards them," she told Newsweek. "A lot of times they come in and it's like they're afraid to speak Russian. They start talking to me in English instead."

I wish we had room for them," she added, "but everything is full."

Irina is not alone. Although a new wave of anti-Russian graffiti has materialized in Tbilisi over the past two weeks, it is difficult to find locals who are openly upset about the increased Russian presence. From waitresses to taxi drivers to supermarket cashiers, most Georgians express sympathy for their unexpected guests.

This does not mean that all of the newcomers are politically enlightened ambassadors of the anti-Putin opposition.

In the dressing room of Tbilisi's historic sulfur baths, a fit young military veteran named Vitaly told Newsweek about his desire to avoid being conscripted into the army "to fight for who-the-hell understands what."

When Vitaly's traveling companion returned from the steam and realized that his compatriot was speaking with a Western journalist, however, he insisted that he and Vitaly were merely on vacation, and that Newsweek ought to investigate allegations of torture committed by Ukrainian soldiers against Russian prisoners of war.

At a basement cafe off of Rustaveli Avenue, a Crimean Tatar explained that, while he was not prepared to fight in Putin's army, he had no real problem with life under Putin's occupation of his native peninsula for the past eight years.

Over a very good Georgian dinner that featured large quantities of domestic Saperavi, a former aide to a provincial politician displayed photographs of his participation in the local Z-themed Victory Day parade from this past May 9.

"Plenty of people inside the system are against the war and against Putin, just like I am," he said, "but there's nothing we can do to change anything in the short term."

"I tolerated it all until I was actually faced with the prospect of having to go and kill on behalf of the regime," he added.

At a cocktail bar in an upscale hotel, a young father from St. Petersburg asked why Russians fleeing potential conscription were made to prove their anti-war bona fides, when similar tests of ideological worthiness were not demanded of American tourists following the invasion of Iraq, "which was pretty much exactly the same thing that Russia is doing in Ukraine."

On a walk through one of outer Tbilisi's gray Soviet-era neighborhoods, a Moscow lawyer found it difficult to believe that Putin was really stupid enough to have thought up the idea of launching his catastrophic invasion of Ukraine by himself. He floated the theory that, when the Western forces who lured the Russian president into his current quagmire finally have derived sufficient profit from their operation, they would snap their fingers and put an end to the suffering.

Still, the idea that these masses of Russian men might represent some sort of pro-Putin political force abroad appears to be far-fetched. In the days before Russia "officially" "annexed" four partially-occupied Ukrainian regions, Telegram channels began circulating announcements for a rally in support of the Kremlin's attempted land grab, to be held at Tbilisi's Liberty Square at 7p.m. on Friday, October 1.

When the appointed hour arrived, however, not a single annexation enthusiast could be seen. A crew of journalists from a local television station hung around for 15 minutes waiting for someone to show up before calling it quits and going home for the night. One Newsweek correspondent did the same.

If anything, it seemed as if pro-Putin Russians were leaving Georgia in the wake of their president's "partial" mobilization announcement, not rushing to it. Dmitry, the journalist who rode a children's bicycle to the border checkpoint, recalled a detail from his eight-hour wait in the line to escape his native country.

"A guy crossing back over into Russia saw us all standing there," Dmitry said. "He rolled down his window to yell at us, 'Traitorous bitches, your mothers will all be slaughtered while you're running away.'"