Europe Should Welcome Every Russian Draft Dodger

Finland and Lithuania are about to send a young man to his death. The 21-year-old in question is Daniil Mukhametov, who has fled Russia to avoid forced military service. Pursued by Russian police, he bought a ticket on the Kaliningrad train that transits Lithuania, used keys purchased online to open a carriage, and jumped from a moving train. He then travelled via Tallinn to Finland, where he sought asylum. Now he is at risk of deportation. 

It is almost impossible to believe: two democratic states are preparing to return a young man to the country he fled to avoid becoming cannon fodder. Legal avenues aren’t exhausted yet, but as things stand, Lithuania and Finland may deport Daniil Mukhametov back to Russia. The situation at hand is the perfect encapsulation of the rotten policy regarding Russians escaping their murderous despot. 

If courts decide to uphold the current ruling, their verdict would amount to state-assisted execution. It would send a young man to his likely death, where he would be forced against his conscience to kill innocent Ukrainians to survive. Mukhametov would face trenches, shrapnel, murderous drones, and months of awaiting death, although it is uncertain if he would even make it that far.

According to Finland’s Association of Conscientious Objectors, he has already opposed the war inside Russia and was detained and abused by the FSB. Seeking asylum could be treated as treason by Moscow. What happens next depends on the Kremlin’s mood, though the choices aren’t many: a firing squad, a mysterious disappearance, or a one-way ticket to the front.

This case exposes a kind of bureaucratic madness. It is senseless that Europe would even consider supplying Putin with a fresh soldier for his war-waging. Every conscript who never reaches Russia’s front is one less body for Putin’s war, one more Ukrainian spared, fewer bullets tearing into Ukrainian lines, fewer civilians suffering, and a war machine that is just a little more starved of fuel.

Draft evasion is a clear moral duty for every Russian, and Europe’s role in making that duty nearly impossible to fulfil is a disgrace. It is plainly in the EU’s interest to oppose Russian conscription. Russian draft dodgers and conscription saboteurs, such as those setting enlistment offices ablaze, are among our closest allies.

Europe should instead make desertion fast. It should make dodging the draft the most tempting option a young Russian has. Ukraine already offers amnesty and forty thousand euros to anyone who deserts the Russian army. Yet it barely scratches the surface of what could be done to lure Russian youth out of their dictator’s embrace.

Incentives only apply to soldiers already at the front, which means deserters face a real danger of being shot by either side. Europe should do far more. It should offer asylum to every Russian escaping their murderous regime. It should give them a chance at long-term residence and a normal life, paired, if necessary, with limited restrictions on liberty for counterintelligence purposes. It should openly encourage Russian dissent through targeted propaganda campaigns. And it should ensure that Russians have real, functioning escape routes out of their country.

Europe could even introduce financial incentives to pull as many Russians as possible out of the conscription system. For instance, as professor Bryan Caplan proposes, they could receive a lump-sum payment on arrival in Europe, so that they do not fear unemployment or poverty if they flee without any savings, and so that the risk of facing Russian border guards and prosecution for treason feels absolutely worth taking.

Europe’s current blend of border closures, tighter legal standards, and inconsistent verdicts leaves the door only half open to those whose refusal to fight most concretely undermines Russian aggression. A targeted, well-publicised “Make Desertion Fast” programme would align European policy with its professed values and with a sound strategy.

People often wonder what they would do if they lived under an authoritarian regime. Would they have hidden Anne Frank in the attic? Would they have conspired with Stauffenberg? Or would they have collaborated with the regime? Right now, countless Russians are facing exactly those kinds of questions. Every day they choose between blind obedience and resistance; between loyal service to their leader and quiet sabotage; between pious devotion to bloodthirsty Russian nationalism and desertion. Those who pass that test clearly deserve entry into the EU; in their hearts, they are already European.

EU countries must make every act of sabotage in Russia as easy as possible, right down to paying for a flask of petrol when an opportunity to burn a conscription office presents itself, and ensure that every possible desertion succeeds. In the face of war, many European nations are sliding back into nationalism and falling into the trap of extending their hatred of the Russian state to the entire Russian people. If Europe refuses to recognise victims of the regime simply because of their nationality, it has already lost its moral compass and will, in time, succumb to the danger from the East by coming to resemble the very foe it claims to despise.

Ian Golan is a policy expert on conscription & military economics. He serves as the national coordinator for Students for Liberty in Finland and is the executive publisher of SpeakFreely Magazine.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Gazifikacia

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