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For the first time, an EU country has admitted and granted temporary asylum to a group of deserters without travel documents or international passports.
Six Russian soldiers who left their troops in Ukraine migrated to France and applied for asylum. France granted them a temporary residence permit.
This remarkable decision may well inspire other Russian soldiers to leave their posts and flee Putin’s horror to EU countries.
In 2023, 5,000 Russian soldiers have left their army units without permission. So reports the independent news site Mediazona based on figures from military courts in the country. Some of them fled abroad, often to Belarus, Armenia and Kazakhstan. But even in these countries they are often not safe from Russian intelligence services, which is why a move to an EU country is starting to become more attractive for many Russian soldiers as they now appear to be temporarily welcome there even without an international travel passport.
