War. Russia admits conscientious objection to the military, but effectively represses it

Russian soldiers, released by the Ukrainians after the latest prisoner exchange, return home. More and more young Russians don’t want to be drafted to fight in Ukraine – Russian Defense Ministry

Hiding or fleeing the country: those who want to avoid conscription in Russia have no other choice. Even if Putin has announced that the partial mobilization can be considered concluded with the call to arms of the 300,000 reservists to be sent to Ukraine, for tens of thousands of conscientious objectors the situation continues to be extremely critical, because a new wave of enlistments could start from moment to moment.

The climate of extreme uncertainty and the risk of being suddenly engulfed by the Kremlin’s war machine has prompted many of them to lose track of themselves. There are those who keep their cell phones almost always off and have been forced to resign (according to Russian law, employers are in fact obliged to hand over recalled employees). Those who left the cities to avoid running into recruitment letter distribution points and went to take refuge in dachas or country houses made available by relatives and friends.

And who, on the other hand, has literally gone into hiding like Adam Kalinin, the pseudonym of the 38-year-old computer technician from Moscow who has been living camped out since the end of September in a forest in southern Russia to escape conscription. He has set up a tent to sleep in and another, equipped with a satellite dish with Internet connection, to continue working. His company fired him but allows him to continue working remotely, in an unofficial capacity. The man cooks outdoors, collects rainwater in plastic buckets and has set up a container with supplies an hour away from his camp. On his Telegram channel he explains that he really misses hot showers but his living conditions are far better than those of the men sent to Ukraine. But he won’t be able to stay there all winter.

In fact, conscientious objection to military service is not a crime in Russia. Criminal proceedings are currently underway against 230 Russian objectors not because they refused to go to fight but because they expressed their dissent on social networks, peacefully protested in public places, distributed clandestine press and posted anti-war stickers. Article 59 of the Russian Constitution would guarantee the right to carry out an alternative civil service but the law is not respected and by now the abuses are no longer counted.

“There are specific detention camps where both conscripts and contract soldiers who refuse to fight in Ukraine are illegally imprisoned,” denounces Alexandr Belik, coordinator of the Russian Conscientious Objectors Movement.

Numerous reports and videos circulated clandestinely on the Web have confirmed the existence of real re-education centers for «refuseniks», where hundreds of men considered traitors to the fatherland are held in custody in the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk territories. To force them to go to the front lines, they make them sleep on the floor, deprive them of food and the possibility of washing themselves and subject them to continuous intimidation, threats and physical violence.

“The situation is very serious and more and more people are turning to our movement for help. Suffice it to say that our Telegram channel now has 55 thousand subscribers while before the mobilization there were just two thousand», continues Belik, who has been taking refuge in Estonia for some months. Among the very few voices that have been raised in defense of the objectors is that of the Russian Bishops’ Conference, which a few weeks ago, with a note signed by the Archbishop of Moscow, Monsignor Paolo Pezzi, directly asked Putin to enforce the right of conscientious objection.