The fate of the Russian soldiers, who refused to fight against Ukraine

With the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian army faced a large number of those who did not want to fight against Ukrainians.

Russia went to war against Ukraine without officially declaring war or imposing martial law, which allowed the Russian military in 2022 to legally submit a report to terminate the contract, which many used.

Nevertheless, on September 21, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on mobilization. At the end of October, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported on the end of mobilization, and then Putin announced the end of conscription into the armed forces.

However, the corresponding decree was not signed. The decree on mobilization in Russia is currently in effect.

Thus, Russian courts continue to refer to this decree, refusing dismissal from the service, in particular, to those contractors who filed documents before September 2022.

Struggling with objectors

In the Russian army, the military, which refused to take part in the hostilities, is called the “500th.”

Russian officers tried various methods to suppress the resistance of the “500th”.

In Russian field camps, boards of shame were displayed, on which were the names and photos of Russian servicemen who did not go to participate in the so-called “special military operation.”

For example, in 2022, 303 people were put up on one board of the 205th Separate Cossack Motor Rifle Brigade; there was not enough space for more names.

Some officers went a step further. They began to refuse to accept reports about the termination of the military contract and illegally imprison those who filed them.

Objectors began to be sent to detention facilities in the occupied territories or imprisoned in concentration camps.

Then, in order to humiliate the military, which had refused to fight against the Ukrainians, the Russian command began to put on military ID cards the stamp “Prone to treason, lies, and deception.”

These stamps are also illegal, and some Russian military managed to obtain the issuance of a new document without this stamp in court.

It is worth noting that since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military has been intimidated by prison for refusing to fight. At first, the courts were not so strict; those who escaped from the unit were more likely to be given a suspended sentence or a fine. But at the end of 2022, the courts began to issue sentences with real terms of imprisonment.

Escape

Another way to avoid participation in the war—not to be mobilized, not to become a prisoner—is to leave Russia.

The first known member of the Russian military to leave Russia due to reluctance to fight against Ukrainians was junior sergeant Pavel Filatyev, paratrooper.

In August 2021, Filatyev signed a new contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense and came to the occupied Crimea, Feodosia, to join the 56th Guards Air Assault Brigade.

On the night of February 24, 2022, Pavel Filatiev’s unit was in Ukraine. None of the commanders explained what was happening, he said. Filatyev realized when the massive artillery attack began that this was a full-scale war with Ukraine.

According to Pavel’s memoirs, in the early days of the war, it was still not clear what exactly the task of his unit was. At the last moment, according to Flatyev, it turned out that the convoy was sent to assault Kherson.

It is worth noting that Filatyev participated in the detention of Ukrainians, who were then killed by other Russian invaders.

Hostilities ended for Pavel Filatiev near Mykolaiv; he received an eye injury and was evacuated to Kherson and then to the hospital in Sevastopol.

After that, he submitted a report for termination of the contract and was released. In August 2022, it became known that Pavel Filatyev had left Russia with the help of human rights defenders from the Gulagu.net project.

“I have been unhappy with our authorities since about 2012, like many in the country. But I never went to rallies; I didn’t participate in the political life of the country or in public life. What, after all? Here I am, ending up in a war that I don’t need at all. Now we need to pay for our indifference. I believe that this war needs to be ended as soon as possible, at any “negotiating table.” Of course, we can endlessly now take revenge on each other, but the truth is that the year, two, ten – the war will end the same way. Question: at what cost next. The faster citizens in Russia will at least stop being afraid to say “war” and “we don’t want war,” the faster it will end. What depends on me and what I can do is, firstly, talk about what I saw there, and secondly, as a citizen, declare my position,” said Pavel Filatyev.

Before leaving Russia, after he published a book about the war, “ZOV 56,” for two weeks he changed his place of residence daily so that he would not be tracked down by the Russian authorities.

“When I heard that the authorities demanded to sentence me to 15 years in prison for fake news, I realized that here I would not achieve anything, and my lawyers would not be able to do anything for me in Russia,” Filatyev said.

At this time, Pavel Filatyev is in Europe and continues to oppose Russia’s war with Ukraine.

Wagner

Andrey Medvedev became the first known commander from the so-called PMC Wagner who opposed the war and was able to leave the Russian Federation.

In January 2023, he crossed the border into Norway and then applied for asylum in that country.

“I am a scoundrel for you. I just ask you to once again pay attention to the fact that I realized it, even if it was too late, but I realized it and opposed it all,” said Andrey Medvedev.

Medvedev noted that he had two reasons to flee Russia. First, according to the ex-militant, he realized that Russia’s war against Ukraine was completely wrong. The second reason was internal cruelty in the ranks of the Wagner PMC.

He said that the mercenaries did not hesitate to kill everyone who spoke out against the orders.

“If someone refused to comply with the order, they were shot under wartime laws,” he explained.

According to him, in just 10 days, when he was at a mercenary training camps, there were several similar cases.

However, in May 2023, despite threats to his life, Andrey Medvedev, who fled to Norway, said he wanted to return to Russia.

Andrey Medvedev stated that he felt like “a boy in a big game” and no longer wanted to be part of it.

“We will see what will happen in Russia. If they kill me, OK. They won’t kill, thank you very much. If I live, thank you even more,” said Andrey Medvedev.

Federal Guard Service

Gleb Karakulov, Captain of the Federal Guard Service of the Russian Federation, left Russia in 2023. He worked until mid-October 2022 as an engineer in the department that provided secret communications for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Karakulov condemned the Russian war against Ukraine. In Russia, a case of desertion was filed against him.

“All the information that Putin receives is only from people who are directly close to him. He lives in a kind of information vacuum,” said a special communications officer.

According to a former Federal Guard Service officer, he “simply could not be in the service of this president.” He called Putin a “war criminal.”

In October, he was sent on an assignment to Kazakhstan. His wife and child also came there. From there, on the last day of Karakulov’s assignment, he and his family flew to Istanbul on a service passport.

Most of his former colleagues from the Federal Guard Service in public conversations, according to Karakulov, supported Putin and the war.

“Federal Guard Service employees are constantly around the president. You can just come in and make it clear that this is a crime. And in your hands is the opportunity to stop this madness very quickly,” said Karakulov.

In March 2023, a court in Barnaul sentenced Mikhail Zhilin, Federal Guard Service Major, who fled to Kazakhstan due to the Russian war with Ukraine, to 6.5 years in a maximum security colony.

He served as the head of the shift in the department of special communications and information of the Federal Guard Service of Russia in the Siberian Federal District, was responsible for Vladimir Putin’s government communication with the regions, and formally had access to state secrets, which prevented him from traveling outside the country.

In September 2022, Zhilin crossed the border between Russia and Kazakhstan, was detained, but was soon released on his own recognizance with a travel ban imposed. He sought political asylum but was deported to Russia in December.

Pilots

Many cases of refusal to send to Ukraine were among Russian pilots. They did not understand why they should fight against Ukraine.

Recently, it became known that Dmitry Mishov, Lieutenant of the Aerospace Force of the Russian Federation, illegally crossed the border with one of the Baltic countries.

He became the first active-duty pilot of the Russian army to flee the country since February 24, 2022.

“I was an assistant helicopter commander. Then I became the navigator-systems operator of a combat helicopter. I served in the military part of the city of Ostrov,” said Dmitry Mishov.

On the night of February 24, when Vladimir Putin announced the start of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Dmitry Mishov slept in a barracks in Belarus. He woke up to the report that it was necessary to fly to Hostomel, which was near Kyiv.

As a result, the departure was canceled due to losses: “That’s when they said that there were no losses, on the first day, a classmate died. There they lost five sides and two crews.”

Realizing what he was going for, Mishov filed a report on his dismissal from the armed forces on January 21, 2022, but did not have time to leave before the start of the war, so he ended up in Belarus.

Dmytro says that he did not take part in the hostilities, never flew to the territory of Ukraine, but only transported various cargoes for the Russian army by Mi-26 helicopter through the territory of Belarus.

He stayed there until April 2022, when he was sent back to the unit to continue formalizing his release.

“I am a soldier; I must defend my country from aggression. I don’t have to participate; I don’t have to be complicit in crime. For some reason, they never explained to us why this war began. Why should we attack Ukrainians, kill them, and destroy cities? And half of Ukrainians, say, have relatives in Russia. It is not entirely clear why we should kill them. I think this is all done only to preserve the power of one person, specifically Putin. In this way, he decided to simply strengthen his power. He thought it was a good idea,” said Dmitry Mishov.

The morale in the army, said Mishov, was different: a small percentage of his comrades fully supported the war, and a small percentage strongly condemned it. Nevertheless, most were simply dissatisfied with their situation when they must fight to receive their former contract salary (pilot officers with all allowances receive 80–90 thousand rubles per month (somewhere about a thousand dollars), while the state promises recruits now 204 thousand rubles per month).

On October 15, the order to relieve Mishov was canceled by the unit commander. The officer received a call informing him that he was to return to the squadron’s location.

Mishov tried to challenge the cancellation of his dismissal in court but lost the case. The command had a conversation about sending the officer to the war with the officer on Friday, January 27, 2023; he was supposed to go to the front on the 31st.

All weekend, the officer thought that there were options not to go to a fight, so as not to go to prison. “I decided to cut my veins,” he says. Not much, but to get to the hospital.”

Mishov expected that after that he would change the category of suitability and still be allowed to quit. Quite quickly, it turned out that this plan would not work; it would not work to avoid being sent to the front, but the prospect of a criminal case became quite real.

“That’s when I tried all the ways. When the doctor told me in the hospital that no one was quitting like that, That everyone goes back to the part. I decided to run away,” says Mishov.

On June 9, 2023, Lithuanian authorities said that Russian Aerospace Force pilot Dmitry Mishov, who fled the war against Ukraine, was in Lithuanian territory.