After the announcement of the military mobilization to fight in Ukraine, on September 21, 2022, Ivan Nesterov fled Russia to avoid being forcibly recruited. But six months later he fell into depression and came back. “I left a few days after the announcement of the mobilization, with a mixture of emotions, especially panic,” the man, from 35 years old, shaved head and tattooedwho works as a trainer in a Moscow gym.
According to his account, he took a plane to the Urals and, from there, a bus to Siberia. Finally, he arrived by car at Kazakhstan, in central Asia, passing through a village called “Ukrainets” (“Ukrainian” in Russian). “An irony of fate,” she jokes. In Kostanai, in northern Kazakhstan, where he settled, he quickly found work in a boxing club. “They didn’t even ask me for my diploma,” he says, surprised. He stayed at the home of a Kazakh family.
According to what he says, his departure was a kind of “protest” against power, despite the fact that he had never participated in any demonstration before or had publicly given his opinion on social networks. “He wanted out of the system at last,” she says.
Hundreds of thousands of young Russians who refused to participate in the campaign in Ukraine left the country following the announcement of the mobilization. Mostly they moved to former Soviet republics such as Kazakhstan, where they could travel without a visa.
But almost a year later, some of those exiles are coming back. It is not known exactly how many because most try to be discreet. “Those who have returned consider that the risk [de que los recluten] has gone down”, explains to the AFP the political scientist Konstantin Kalachev.