Caen: Six Russian soldiers who fled the fighting in Ukraine have found refuge in France and hope to receive asylum, in a landmark case of Russian deserters being welcomed in an EU country as a group.
The deserters, all of whom had reached France via Kazakhstan, told AFP in a series of interviews they hoped their actions would encourage other Russian men to defy Moscow authorities and flee the war, now in its third year.
“Maybe, thanks to my example, someone will be inspired and want to quit the army,” said Alexander, who unwittingly took part in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The weaker the army at the front is, the fewer people there are, the quicker the war will end and Ukraine will win,” said the 26-year-old.
Among those who have arrived in France over the past few months are mostly those who managed to desert before being sent to the front. Alexander, however, was dispatched to Ukraine but eventually managed to flee.
The six Russian deserters arrived in France thanks to support from rights groups including Russie-Libertes, a Paris-based association. Some arrived with their partners so in total 10 people received permission to enter the country.
Speaking to AFP in the northwestern French city of Caen, Alexander said he was in shock when Russia’s invasion began in February, 2022.
Having left with his unit for “military exercises” in the peninsula of Crimea annexed by Russia in 2014, he recounted crossing the Ukrainian border in a convoy and suddenly finding himself “in another country.”
“Our commanders told us it would be over in ten days,” he said.
He said he did not engage in combat and dealt largely with communications.
Another deserter said he wanted Russian soldiers to know there was “always” a choice.
“There is always a possibility to lay down your arms, not to kill other people and to end your participation in this war,” 27-year-old Sergei (not his real name) said in Paris.
Since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, Western countries including France have welcomed thousands of anti-Kremlin Russians.
However, activists say European governments have been wary of welcoming Russian soldiers because they are viewed as a security risk and might have committed war crimes.
Olga Prokopieva, head of Russie Libertes, hailed France’s “unprecedented” move and urged other European countries to follow suit.
“It has taken us a year of talks,” she said. “We have tried so many things.”
All the men had been vetted by the activists, Prokopieva said, adding her organization was in touch with more deserters now living in Kazakhstan.
Faced with a choice between taking part in a war of aggression or going to prison for refusing to fight in Ukraine, hundreds of deserters and draft dodgers have over the past two years fled to neighboring ex-Soviet countries.
But they do not feel safe in countries like Kazakhstan and Armenia, which have close ties to Moscow, and risk being deported back to Russia to face prosecution.
Apart from being viewed with suspicion in the West, it is also hard for Russian servicemen to seek refuge in Europe for logistical reasons.
Many have documents that only permit them to reach ex-Soviet countries such as Kazakhstan or Armenia, and not the type of Russian passport valid for visas and travel to Europe.
Andrei Amonov was stranded in Kazakhstan for two years before arriving in France.
“I lived in fear for two years,” he said.
The 32-year-old road worker from the city of Mirny deep in northeastern Siberia was one day told by his boss he was “fired” and had to go to the front or face prosecution.
Along with other men, Amonov was put on a plane and flown to the city of Ulan-Ude to undergo training. He managed to escape and flew to Kazakhstan.
He was briefly detained on May 12, his birthday, when Kazakh police came to his apartment, handcuffed him and took him to the police station. He was later released.
He was lonely, could not find a permanent job, and suffered from depression and panic attacks.
Sergei, a professional soldier, also said he was afraid of being arrested and deported.
On top of being a deserter, Sergei is gay and lived in the conservative Central Asian country with his partner. “Things were a bit scary in Kazakhstan.”
Another deserter, Mikhail (not his real name) said the day the war broke out changed everything. “I realized that from now on I won’t move a finger to support this,” he said.
A former career officer who now wears his hair long, he recounted in great detail how for months he resisted orders to go to the front and dragged out the legal proceedings authorities launched against him.
He finally fled in May 2023, just days before his trial.
“The day I arrived in Astana was the best day of my life,” he said, referring to the capital of Kazakhstan.
In Kazakhstan the deserters met through local rights activists and recorded videos to encourage others to flee the battlefield as part of an initiative dubbed “Farewell to arms.”
In France, the men finally feel safe.
Sergei can hold hands with his partner in public. “It is a very nice feeling,” he said.
Amonov, who had never before traveled to Europe, is preparing to start a new life in Bordeaux and is learning French and English.
“Freedom, finally! And safety,” he said. “At last I am feeling better.”
In a first, France welcomes Russian army deserters
https://arab.news/mrffe
In a first, France welcomes Russian army deserters
- One deserter said he wanted Russian soldiers to know there was “always” a choice
NATO’s Rutte: North Korea sending troops to Ukraine would escalate conflict
Rutte, who took office at NATO at the start of the month, said he had a discussion with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol about the alliance’s close partnership with Seoul, focusing on defense industrial cooperation and the interconnected security of the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions.
South Korea’s foreign ministry summoned on Monday the Russian ambassador in Seoul in protest over what it has called the dispatch of North Korean troops to Russia for deployment in Ukraine and pledged a joint international response.
South Korea’s first vice foreign minister Kim Hong-kyun called in Georgy Zinoviev, the top Russian envoy to Seoul, and urged the immediate withdrawal of North Korean soldiers from Russia, the ministry said in a statement.
Kim said the participation of North Korean troops in the war in Ukraine violated UN resolutions and the UN charter and posed serious threats to the security of South Korea and beyond.
“We condemn North Korea’s illegal military cooperation, including its dispatch of troops to Russia, in the strongest terms,” the ministry quoted Kim as saying.
“We will respond jointly with the international community by mobilizing all available means against acts that threaten our core security interests.”
Phone calls to the Russian embassy went unanswered. The ministry said Zinoviev told Kim that he would relay the message to Moscow.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said last week that North Korea was preparing to send 10,000 soldiers to help Moscow’s war effort, and that some North Korean officers were already deployed on Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory.
The West has long accused North Korea of supplying weapons to Russia. Rutte and the Pentagon both said last week that they have found no evidence yet of a North Korean military presence on the ground in Ukraine.
US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen dead: Turkish TV
ISTANBUL: Turkish public television reported Monday that US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara says masterminded a failed 2016 coup, has died.
Citing posts on X and social media by groups close to Gulen, they said the 83-year-old died in hospital overnight.
Gulen, who led a movement called Hizmet, was accused by Turkiye of leading a “terrorist” group and being the brains behind an abortive coup to topple strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s governmnt in 2016 — accusations he had consistently denied.
Gulen had lived in Pennsylvania since 1999. He was stripped of his Turkish nationality in 2017.
Polio is rising in Pakistan ahead of a new vaccination campaign
- Since January, health officials have confirmed 39 new polio cases in Pakistan, compared to only six last year, despite conducting multiple campaigns
- Pakistan regularly launches polio campaigns despite attacks on workers and police assigned to inoculation drives
ISLAMABAD: Polio cases are rising ahead of a new vaccination campaign in Pakistan, where violence targeting health workers and the police protecting them has hampered years of efforts toward making the country polio-free.
Since January, health officials have confirmed 39 new polio cases in Pakistan, compared to only six last year, said Anwarul Haq of the National Emergency Operation Center for Polio Eradication.
The new nationwide drive starts Oct. 28 with the aim to vaccinate at least 32 million children. “The whole purpose of these campaigns is to achieve the target of making Pakistan a polio-free state,” he said.
Pakistan regularly launches campaigns against polio despite attacks on the workers and police assigned to the inoculation drives. Militants falsely claim the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.
Most of the new polio cases were reported in the southwestern Balochistan and southern Sindh province, following by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and eastern Punjab province.
The locations are worrying authorities since previous cases were from the restive northwest bordering Afghanistan, where the Taliban government in September suddenly stopped a door-to-door vaccination campaign.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are the two countries in which the spread of the potentially fatal, paralyzing disease has never been stopped. Authorities in Pakistan have said that the Taliban’s decision will have major repercussions beyond the Afghan border, as people from both sides frequently travel to each other’s country.
The World Health Organization has confirmed 18 polio cases in Afghanistan this year, all but two in the south of the country. That’s up from six cases in 2023. Afghanistan used a house-to-house vaccination strategy this June for the first time in five years, a tactic that helped to reach the majority of children targeted, according to WHO.
Health officials in Pakistan say they want the both sides to conduct anti-polio drives simultaneously.
As US election looms, Pentagon chief visits Ukraine in show of support
- US will support Ukraine after presidential election, Austin says
- Visit not expected to see lifting of US weapons restrictions
KYIV: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Ukraine on Monday, in a show of Washington’s support for Kyiv just two weeks ahead of a US presidential election that is casting uncertainty over the future of Western support.
Austin’s trip, his fourth and likely final visit as President Joe Biden’s Pentagon chief, will include in-depth discussions about US efforts to help Kyiv shore up its defenses as Moscow’s forces advance in the east.
But it is not expected to include a new US agreement to some of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s biggest requests, like lifting US restrictions on using US-supplied weapons to hit targets far beyond Ukraine’s borders.
As Biden’s administration winds down, Austin signalled continuity in US support.
“We’re going to continue to support Ukraine in its efforts to defend its sovereign territory,” Austin told reporters traveling with him to Ukraine.
“We’ve watched this fight evolve over time. And each time that it does evolve, we have risen to the occasion to meet (Ukraine’s) needs to make sure that they were effective on the battlefield.”
His visit comes ahead of the Nov. 5 US presidential vote, in which former President Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, is seeking re-election in a close race against Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate.
Trump has signalled he would be more reluctant than Biden to continue to support Ukraine, which could deprive Kyiv of its biggest military and financial backer.
Austin played down concerns, saying he saw support for Ukraine from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress.
“I’ve seen bipartisan support for Ukraine over the last 2-1/2 years, and I fully expect that we’ll continue to see the bipartisan support from Congress,” he said.
The retired four star general has been one of Ukraine’s staunchest advocates, building a coalition of dozens of nations who have supplied Kyiv with weaponry that has helped it deal heavy blows to Moscow’s forces.
One US defenses official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russia had suffered 600,000 casualties of killed and wounded troops in Ukraine so far, with September being its heaviest month of fatalities and injuries.
But Russian President Vladimir Putin seems content to invest more and more forces in a costly advance in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, which he says he wants to gain full control over.
In recent weeks, Russia has surrounded towns in the Donetsk region and then slowly constricted them until Ukrainian units are forced to withdraw.
“It’s a very tough fight and it’s a tough slog,” Austin said.
’Victory plan’
Meanwhile, Kyiv has been seeking to keep its war in focus in the West, even as the expanding conflicts in the Middle East grab the international spotlight.
Zelensky last met Austin in Brussels on Thursday at the NATO headquarters, where he pitched his “victory plan.”
The Ukrainian leader received pledges of continued support but no endorsement from key allies of his call for an immediate NATO-membership invitation.
Asked about Zelensky’s victory plan at NATO headquarters on Friday, Austin responded: “It’s not my position to evaluate publicly his plan.”
Kyiv may need to start making tough decisions about how to employ its stretched fighting forces, including whether it will hold onto territory Kyiv seized in Russia’s Kursk region in a surprise offensive this summer, experts say.
The Kursk offensive caught Austin and the US government off-guard. Kyiv hoped it would wrest the battlefield initiative from Russia including by diverting Moscow’s forces from the eastern front.
But Putin has remained focused on seizing the key city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, which is an important logistics hub for Kyiv’s war effort.
Even with billions of dollars worth of US military support, including the provision of F-16 fighter jets, Abrams tanks and more, Ukraine faces a tough fight ahead.
Although its invasion of Ukraine has inflicted blows to Russia’s economy, made it more isolated diplomatically and battered its military, Russia “is not ready to call it quits,” a senior US defense official said.
“And so that does place a steep burden on the Ukrainians,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
IMF, World Bank meetings clouded by wars, slow economic growth, US election
- US election could reshape trade, climate policies
- Anti-China trade sentiment is key topic at meetings
WASHINGTON: Global finance chiefs will gather in Washington this week amid intense uncertainty over wars in the Middle East and Europe, a flagging Chinese economy and worries that a coin-toss US presidential election could ignite new trade battles and erode multilateral cooperation.
The International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings are scheduled to draw more than 10,000 people from finance ministries, central banks and civil society groups to discuss efforts to boost patchy global growth, deal with debt distress and finance the green energy transition.
But the elephant in the meeting rooms will be the potential for a Nov. 5 election victory by US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to upend the international economic system with massive new US tariffs and borrowing and a shift away from climate cooperation.
“Arguably the most important issue for the global economy — the outcome of the US election — is not on the official agenda this week, but it’s on everyone’s mind,” said Josh Lipsky, a former IMF official who now heads the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.
The election “has huge implications on trade policy, on the future of the dollar, on who the next Federal Reserve chair is going to be, and all of those impact every country in the world,” he added.
US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, is largely expected to continue the Biden administration’s resumption of multilateral cooperation on climate, tax and debt relief issues if she wins next month’s vote.
The meetings, which start on Monday and get into full swing later in the week, will likely be the last for US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who spearheaded much of the Biden administration’s multilateral economic and climate efforts. Yellen has said she is “probably done” with public service at the end of President Joe Biden’s term in office in January.
But growing anti-China trade sentiment and industrial policy plans from wealthy countries, punctuated by the Biden administration’s steep tariff increases on Chinese electric vehicles, semiconductors and solar products, is expected to be a key discussion topic at the meetings.
Lackluster growth
The IMF will update its global growth forecasts on Tuesday. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva last week flagged a lackluster outlook, saying the world, saddled by high debts, was headed for slow medium-term growth, and pointing to a “difficult future.”
Still, Georgieva said she was “not super-pessimistic” about the outlook, given pockets of resilience, notably in the US and India that are offsetting continued weakness in China and Europe.
While debt defaults among poor countries may have peaked, participants at the annual meetings are expected to discuss the growing problem of scarce liquidity that is forcing some emerging markets saddled with high debt service costs to delay development investments as overseas aid shrinks.
Last year’s IMF and World Bank annual meetings got underway in Morocco as the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and unleashing conflicts with a death toll of more than 40,000 Gazans, according to Palestinian health authorities.
The economic damage has been largely limited to economies in or adjacent to the conflict: Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan.
“If there was to be an escalation that puts at risk oil and gas delivery, that could have much more significant spillover for the world economy,” Georgieva told Reuters in an interview.
Support for Ukraine also will be a major topic at the meetings, as the G7 wealthy democracies aim to reach a political agreement by the end of October for a $50 billion loan for the Eastern European country backed by frozen Russian sovereign assets. The loan in part is seen as a financial bulwark against a Trump victory next month, as the former US president has threatened to “get out of Ukraine.”
Despite the wall of worry, World Bank and IMF officials intend to spend the week concentrating on the work at hand at the meetings, which coincide with the 80th anniversary of the institutions’ founding in 1944 at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.
For World Bank President Ajay Banga, that means finding ways to speed up the preparations of projects to use the bank’s expanded lending capacity and refining a new scorecard aimed at improving development outcomes.
“The world is the world right now. And rather than use the meetings to go over what we already seem to know — which is to admire the problem — I’d like to take the annual meetings to doing something about what we can do as institutions,” Banga told reporters last week.
