According to Kommersant, one of the leading business daily newspapers in the Russian Federation, the National Court of Asylum of France (CNDA) has granted amnesty to a Russian who was threatened with mobilization. It is important to note that both the CNDA and the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OPFRA) can hear these cases and appeals.
According to Kommersant, at least two other Russian citizens made similar claims to both bodies, but this third unidentified Indvidual was finally approved, setting a precedent in a major Western country of allowing citizens to flee conscription in another European state. This announcement comes as Russian-French relations are spiraling as President Macron told press that deploying French troops to Ukraine was on the table. That statement has been picked up by the Ukrainian government which attempted to clarify that those French troops would only be trainers. The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on its Telegram channel that French troops in Ukraine would be a legitimate and priority target.
It is important to note that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has sparked three waves of emigration among Russian citizens.
The first occurred immediately after the February 24th, 2022, invasion in which about 15,000 upper-crust Russians fled in protest. These included celebrities, IT workers, and journalists. These citizens feared persecution for denouncing the war and ideologically opposed the invasion. More than 2,000 Russian citizens were charged by May 2022 for “spreading misinformation” about the war, according to Amnesty International and 4,000 were reported by December 2022.
The second wave occurred in July 2022 and was more of an extension of the first wave but consisted of people who waited for their children’s school term to complete before leaving in the Summer. The combined number between these two waves is around 15,000.
However, the third wave has been the most dramatic in response to the September 21st, 2022, mobilization announcements. This publication covered the extreme vehicle lines attempting to cross into Kazakhstan in October 2022. Approximately 98,000 Russians fled to visa-free Kazakhstan. Between September 21st and October 4th, an estimated 400,000 Russian citizens fled to multiple countries including Turkey, Georgia, Finland, UAE, Serbia, Armenia, and others. However, the countries most impacted by Russian immigrants have been Serbia and Turkey with about 100,000 Russians seeking stays there. In an interesting vignette, in October 2022, two Russians fled to Alaska via small boat.
As of this publication, Latvia, Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, and several other EU nations have denied Russian asylum status for fleeing conscription, causing them to become illegal immigrants 90 days after being in the country.
France, by accepting this asylum claim, opens the door for other EU nations to begin accepting similar claims.